Passage of Arms Across Turkey

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 121, 23 May 1941, Page 7

Passage of Arms Across Turkey

AXIS AND RUSSIAN PLANS TO EXERCISE PRESSURE LONDON, May 21. “Britain has directed Turkey’* attention to the passage of arms and munitions from Syria to Iraq by the Alleppo-Mosul railway, across Turkey,” says the diplomatic correspondent of The Timer. “The Turkish Government is apparently more fearful tha.n some cf its military advisers, and believes that intervention would result in the Iraqi rebels preventing the dispatch of arms to Turkey by the Basra-Mosul route. It does not seem to realise that while the rebellion persists there is no likelihood of the rebels allowing traffic, and it is most improbable that Germany and Italy will sanction such a concession. “The isolation of Turkey is an important part of the Axis plan for the conquest of the Near and Middle East, and the less well armed Turkey is the easier it will be to isolate her. The conversations between Russia and Germrny are believed to have included an agreement at the expense of Turkey or Iran or both.” The Ankara correspondent of The Times says: “The Turks would like to see more action in Iraq, but they are

fairly confident that the British will be able to prevent a German conquest either of Iraq or Syria provided there is not an unsvpected. intervention by a third party. “This refers to Russia. The possibility is mentioned that Russia will give German troops passage through Batum and Iran to Iraq. The negotiations between Russia and Germany provide a lever for exercising pressure on Turkey. The Germans at present are not demanding anything from Turkey, except the largest possible extension of mutual trade.”

Sixteen Axis merchant ships passed westward through the Bosphorus after the defeat of Greece. The cargoes were suspect, but the Turks have no lights of control.