RUSSIAN AID TO PERSIA

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28370, 31 August 1957, Page 13

RUSSIAN AID TO PERSIA

Unlimited Credit - Offered

(fful. Press Association—Copynght) (.Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, August 30 The Russian economic offensive against the Bagdad Pact Powers is gathering momentum, says a special correspondent of the “Financial Times,” discussing the Russian offer of unlimited credit to Persia, which, he says, crowns months of increasing attention to the country between Turkey and Pakistan, two leading members of the pact.

The correspondent recalls that the new policy of wooing began last March with the promise of unconditional economic assistance. This found its first practical expression in a scheme agreed this month for building a hydroelectric power station and irrigation canals along the SovietPersian frontier. An earlier three-year trade agreement between the two countries has been linked to a Persian-Russian transit pact. When this is in full operation, goods from Persia will reach Western Europe across Russia in 20 to 25 days, about half the time it takes to ship* goods round the Arabian peninsula. The implementation of both agreements has now led to a new Russian aid o'ffer to Persia. Railways from the Russian frontier to Teheran and the Caspian Sea ports are not capable of coping with the expected large-scale traffic. Assistance hss been offered therefore for the modernisation of the railway and the extension of ports. The first approximate figures mentioned indicate that the Russian aid scheme will not be far behind American assistance, which ' has amounted to 100 million dollars in grants in the last three years.