THE BAHREIN ISLANDS

Evening Star, Issue 19805, 2 March 1928, Page 4

THE BAHREIN ISLANDS

PERSIA’S CLAIM NOT RECOGNISED BY BRITAIN. (British Official News.) Pwut Association—By Wireless—Copyright RUGBY, February 29. A copy of a Note addressed to uhe Persian Minister in London by the Foreign Secretary (Sir Austen Chamberlain) on the subject of the Bahrein Islands was communicated to the League of Nations to-day. The Note is a reply to tho Persian Government’s protest of November last against the terms of article 5 of the Treaty of Jeddah, which was concluded in May, 1327, with the King of Hedjaz and Nejd, on the ground that the reference in that article to the islands of Bahrein was contrary to the territorial integrity of Persia.

The Note states that the British Government was not aware of any valid grounds upon which the claim of the Persian Government to sovereigntyover these islands is, or can be, based. Geographically, the islands are nob part of Persia, nor are the inhabitants of the Persian race. The British Government is aware that during part of the seventeenth century and lor some years during the latter part of the eighteenth century, Bahrein was over-run and occupied by Persian troops, or by followers of certain chiefs fxom the eastern shores of .the Persian

Gulf, but it appears to be established that in or about the year 1783 the Government of the Shah was dispossessed of the islands by an invasion of Arab tribes under the leadership of the direct lineal ancestor of the present sheik, and that since that date the islands had never at any time been under the effective control of Persia. The Note declares that the Persian allegation that their claim to sovereignty over Bahrein lias been recognised on various occasions is entirely inadmissible. Concluding, the Note says: “From the foregoing remarks you will observe that the British Government, neither in 1869 nor at any other time, intended to recognise that Bahrein was part of Persia, and that while they have indeed admitted that a claim on the subject has from time to time been put forward by the Persian Government they have never admitted the validity of such claims by the Turkish or Persian Governments. Their consistent endeavor in the matter of Bahrein lias been to secure that the peaceful development of the island and the welfare of, Ihe Arab inhabitants shall not Ik: disturbed by unjustified attempt mi the part of their neighbors to subject them to foreign domination. They are not prepared to contemplate any departure from this policy.” [The Bahrein Islands term a group of five in the Persian Gulf, twenty miles off the coast of El Hasa, in Arabia. Bahrein, the largest, is twentyseven miles long by ton miles wide.]