NEAR EAST MOVEMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23542, 30 December 1939, Page 6

NEAR EAST MOVEMENTS

Reports from India state that Afghanistan is mobilising troops for defence against Russia and that Iran is concentrating forces on the Russian frontiei*. There have been several suggestions, since the outbreak of war, of the Soviet Government preparing to turn to the old trail of Tsarist Russia by seeking to drive toward India and the Persian Gulf. Nothing has appeared recently to indicate any need for special or immediate precautions by Iran and Afghanistan. The reasonable inference is that Russia would seek a decision in Finland before attempting any other adventures, especially as the Finnish resistance has obviously disturbed the Kremlin by its vigour and success. Nevertheless the outbreak of aggression on the Baltic has naturally made other small nations fearful of an attack on their own independence. In particular, it is reported to have drawn closer together all the signatories of the Saadabad Pact—Turkey, Irak, Iran and Afghanistan. The pact, drawn up and initialled at Geneva in 1935 and signed in July, 1937, is of friendship, consultation and nonaggression. Up to the present it is not a military or defensive alliance, though it could easily become one if there were need of it. Meantime, it seems likely the two members named are simply looking to their defences, as any nation similarly situated would be well advised to do. The chief significance of these movements is the indication that Russia would not necessarily have a free passage through these two countries if Soviet policy turned that way. Such a drive is usually represented as a move for Britain to fear. So it would be, but unless Iran and Afghanistan accepted it passively, it would be a formidable enterprise for Russia from the very beginning.