THREAT SEEN TO PERSIA

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26186, 9 August 1950, Page 7

THREAT SEEN TO PERSIA

REGENT RUSSIAN ACCUSATIONS

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, August 7. “Persia is being mentioned with increasing frequency as a possible site for another Russian probe in strength if, as may well be the case, the Korean excursion is intended to be the first of a series,” says the “Spectator.” ‘“Evidence that something is brewingon this front is derived partly from the sharp accusations which have passed from Moscow to Teheran, alleging hostile intentions on the part of the Persian Government, and partly from the bellicose tone of recent broadcasts from Russian stations to and about Persia. /

“Any attack on Persia would be an attack by Russian troops on a State whose integrity is a matter of Western concern: in other words, such an attack would provoke general war. But the knowledge that this is the case cannot prevent Persia from being a singularly tempting prize in Russian eyes.

“In a day or two, Russian troops could be on the Persian Gulf, where they would not now even be met by the stock answer to such a threat—the dispatch to Basra of a brigade from the British Army in India,” says the “Spectator.”

“Internally, the Persian economy still creaks with. painful maladjustments. A new and reputedly energetic Prime Minister has recently come to power, in General Rasmara, lately Chief of the General Staff. But he has two handicaps to overcome, the suspicion whi-’h. after the career of the late Reza Shah, inevitably attaches to an energetic soldier in politics, and the belief widely held in Persia that he is backed by the American Embassy. “To revitalise her economy, Persia is badly in need of capital, and America is about the onlv available source for canital. But the application of ‘Point Four’ principles (the ‘Point Four’ programme for United States aid to backward countries) in the Middle East needs a great deal of tact if it is not going to defeat its own ends.”