LEAVING PERSIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 March 1946, Page 5

LEAVING PERSIA

RUSSIAN TROOPS RECEIVE ORDERS

BRITISH MOVE FROM TEHERAN

(Rec.. 10.45 a.m.) TEHERAN, March 1.

' Russian troops have received orders to begin their evacuation of Persia. The Under-Secretary of State, Prince Firouz, said the Russians were leaving Semmnan, 100 miles east of Teheran, tomorrow, which was the deadline for their remaining under the Big Three agreement with the Persian Government.

Prince Firouz added: The Russian move is one of the good results of the negotiations now progressing in Moscow between the Prime Minister, Gharam Sultaneh and Russian officials.

Six hundred British troops moved from Teheran yesterday and the last 200 of them are to-day moving across southern Persia to Iraq. The last remaining Americans were withdrawn last December.

In Teheran to-day the only military personnel remaining were the staffs of foreign military attaches and the American military missions under contract to the Persian Government to train the Persian army and the national police. An associated Press correspondent says that the last handful of British troops left Teheran on' Wednesday night and the city is now completely free of foreign troops for the first time since the Allied “invasion” early in the war. British and Russian troops left the capital months ago. British troops in southern Persia, also going to Iraq, will complete the move by March 1.