The Gisborne Herald IN WHICH IS INCORPORATED "THE TIMES." GISBORNE, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1948. SOVIET PRESSURE TO BE SWITCHED TO PERSIA?

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22757, 1 October 1948, Page 4

The Gisborne Herald IN WHICH IS INCORPORATED "THE TIMES." GISBORNE, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1948. SOVIET PRESSURE TO BE SWITCHED TO PERSIA?

PERSIA, stated a brief cablegram from Teheran published yesterday, is devoting one-third of her budget to the War Ministry. According to one of her leading military men, Marshal Ali Razmara, war is approaching nearer every moment, and Persia will be one of the main battlefields in any future conflict. Persia has every reason to be apprehensive. While it is most unlikely that war will eventuate as a direct result of the Berlin trouble—when it comes to the point Russia dare not defy the United Nations or the whole of Western Europe and America over this particular issue—the Soviet dictatorship would not be running true to the form shown by all dictatorships if it did not seek to “save face” by making its weight felt elsewhere.

If Russia has to give way over Berlin, the world can look for increased Soviet activity in areas where the Politburo may think it safe to maintain pressure for a time with impunity. The comparatively weak country of Persia is badly placed to resist the might of its great northern neighbour, and indeed bolds a perilous key position standing in the path of any possible Soviet attempts at infiltration into the whole of the Middle East. Previous Soviet demands on Persia have been economic, but there can be little doubt that their fulfilment would mean political penetration in the northern provinces Persia lies on the arc of border States, running from Scandinavia across Central Europe through Turkey and Afghanistan to Manchuria and Korea, upon which Moscow has long had expansionist designs. One of the most recent attempts to extend Russian influence in Persia was the Soviet-sponsored separatist movement in Azerbaijan. Under the pressure of world opinion and maybe because she considered, the time inopportune for a showdown. Russia left her Azerbaijan proteges in the lurch when the central Government reacted strongly. But later she returned to the charge with reiterated demands for oil concessions in the north, Tracked by the familiar war of nerves, including reports of troop concentrations on the frontier. The position at the moment is obscure. So. much attention is being devoted to Berlin and United Nations affairs in general that the Persian and Turkish end of the Middle East has been thrust into the background ot the news. Judging from. yesterday s brief message, however, Persia obviously feels that she is in a tough spot. And so it may well prove. In order to thrive and impress their people, totalitarian regimes must keep moving aggressively somewhere and somehow. If a settlement over Berlin is reached, we can turn our attention anew to the Middle East. There, too,. Russia may start pressing her so-ealled claims to the verge of conflict and there, too, she will have to be faced by a united show of democratic strength.