RUSSIA IN PERSIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 29 November 1945, Page 4

RUSSIA IN PERSIA

AZERBAIJAN is a province in northwest Persia (Iran) bordering that part of the U.S.S.R. which contains the rich oilfields centring on the Caspian port of Baku. North Persia also has oil. At the height of the Axis threat to the Middle East the three major Allies moved into Persia to protect her and also to open a supply line to Russia through the Persian Gulf. By agreement the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Persia was to be respected and Allied troops were to leave the country within six months of the end of the war. The Americans have already gone and the British have announced their intention of evacuating as soon as Russia will do the same. So far Moscow has not said that this will b e done. Soviet troops have left Teheran officially but unofficially they are still there —generally in plain clothes—while Stalin’s armed forces remain in north Persia. Despite denials, Soviet influence has been exercised for months past to undermine Persian authority in Azerbaijan by using various devices which give encouragement to local political extremists with Communist affiliations who support a separatist movement. They are the insurgents who are reported to-day to have advanced to within 85 miles of Teheran. The excuse is that Persia is unable to maintain order and that something must be done to check repression, yet, at th e same time, Russia has intervened to stop Persian forces from going to the north to quell the uprising, an action which has drawn a sharp protest from Britain.

International uneasiness is due to suspicion of Russian motives so the disturbance in this out-of-the-way corner of the world assumes much more than a local significance. The too familiar technique of infiltration is appearing, along with the covert championing of the “rights of a minority” by a major Power watching developments from across the frontier. Such intervention is quite contrary to the promises given to the Persians, and the world well remembers how Gerrhany used these selfsame tactics as a prelude to oppression for her own ends.