War and Peace in Qajar Persia: Implications Past and ... - Oguzlar.az

154 Richard Schofieldfeatures such as mountains and rivers) was accepted in the West and wouldprovide a guiding principle for colonial boundary-drawing for the nexthalf-century.Deliberately maintaining grey area within the May 1847 treaty and thegeneral murkiness of the manner of its conclusion were the inevitablecosts of gaining Ottoman and Persian signatures on the document. For herethere was a river boundary delimitation supposedly introduced by a treatythat made no explicit mention of ownership of the river waters itself, whileOttoman assent to its vague and ambivalent contents had only beenextended after the issue of secret explanatory notes from Britain both beforeand after its signature (of which Persia would be unaware until after theErzurum Treaty’s signature). 18 Even then, Britain realized that the territorialarrangement being contemplated – recognition of the Shatt as anOttoman river – was far from ideal for a navigable river used by both sides.No less a figure than Lord Palmerston himself (then Foreign Secretary) voicedreservations:I have to state to you with reference to the pretension which has beenadvanced by the Porte to an absolute right of sovereignty over the Chatel-Arab,that when the opposite banks of a river belong as they do inthe case of the lower portion of the Chat-el-Arab, to different Powers,it would be contrary to international usage to give to one of the twopowers the exclusive sovereignty of that portion of the course of suchRiver, and that therefore this proposal of the Turkish Government’s seemsto be inadmissible. 19Hence the very crux of the Shatt al-Arab boundary dispute as it existedup until 1975 had been recognized before pen was put to paper to initiallydefine the river boundary in the first instance. Here though, the mediatingcommissioners had to concern themselves with the art of the possible. Yet,while Ottoman ownership of the entire waters of the Shatt was clearlyimplied by the treaty and Britain and Russia felt confident that a delimitationhad been extended along its east (Persian) bank as a consequence, thetext itself was anything but definitive. Article Two dealt with territorialdefinition:The State of Persia undertakes that all the level lands of the provinceof Zohab, i.e. the lands of the western part of it, shall be abandoned tothe State of Turkey.The State of Turkey also undertakes that the lands of the eastern partof the province of Zohab, i.e. all the mountainous lands of it, with thevalley of Kerrind, shall be abandoned to the State of Persia.And the State of Persia firmly undertakes to give up all manner ofclaim in regard to the town and province of Souleimanieh, and not atany time to meddle or interfere in any way with the right of sovereigntywhich the State of Turkey possesses in the said province.