the formulation of the baghdad pact

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The formulation of theBaghdad pactAra SanjianVersion of record first published: 07 Dec2006.

To cite this article: Ara Sanjian (1997): The formulation of the Baghdadpact, Middle Eastern Studies, 33:2, 226-266

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The Formulation of the Baghdad Pact

ARA SANJIAN

The formulation of the 1955 Turkish-Iraqi Pact of Mutual Co-operation,which metamorphosed soon afterwards into the short-lived five-powerBaghdad Pact, is nowadays usually seen as the direct result of the initiativetaken by the United States Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, after thelatter's historic trip across eleven Middle Eastern capitals in May 1953. Thisfamous tour - the first-ever to the area by an American head of diplomacy- is now generally considered as a watershed in Middle East politics,burying plans for the long-cherished Middle East Defence Organisation(MEDO), designated to create a regional bulwark against any possibleSoviet penetration, and replacing it with plans to set up the so-called'Northern Tier' collective defence project, based on the voluntaryparticipation of pro-Western Middle Eastern countries lying on the southernborders of the USSR.

In light of the documentary evidence now available, however, thisassertion can be held as true only in its broadest sense. Dulles was indeedconvinced during the said tour that the continuing controversy between theBritish and Iranian governments over the fate of the recently nationalizedAnglo-Iranian Oil Company, the conflict between Egypt and Britain overBritish military presence in the Suez Canal base zone, and the continuingArab-Israeli dispute over Palestine clearly made MEDO a future rather thanan immediate possibility. He also deduced that MEDO had not workedbecause of Western predominance. Instead, Dulles concluded that theprospect of an anti-Soviet collective defence alliance was more encouragingin Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, where political leaders seemed to bemore aware of the Communist threat. His new approach envisaged anassociation of local forces under an indigenous command. Outside powerscould not present a blueprint and expect it to be accepted automatically.Their absence could even encourage other Middle Eastern countries to join.As the pact developed, however, Western advisers could become involvedin the matters of planning and organization. The 'Northern Tier' schemewould, furthermore, separate the issues of regional defence from theintricacies of inter-Arab and Arab-Israeli politics.1 Dulles understood,however, that, ultimately, for a really viable defence concept to developfully, the participation, or at least the co-operation, of most Arab states in

Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.33, No.2, April 1997, pp.226-266PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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THE FORMULATION OF THE BAGHDAD PACT 227

the region would be necessary. The latter, however, because of their pastcolonial experiences with France and the United Kingdom, their emergentnationalism and past American and British support for Israel, did not seemready to join any such scheme in the immediate future. Based on theseobservations, Washington decided to follow a more independent andresponsible policy in the area vis-a-vis Britain; drop the previousmultilateral approach and work instead on individual states like Iraq andPakistan, and possibly Syria. Nevertheless, the 'Northern Tier' projectshould not be viewed still as a radical bre^k with past plans. Indeed, noneof the countries previously involved in the extensive consultations to set upMEDO, Britain and Turkey included, saw it as such. Rather, Dulles's tripwas simply a new and important stage in the evolution of the general MiddleEast defence plan, which was being deliberated in Western capitals eversince the Cold War pressures had begun to be felt in the area in the late1940s. Ayesha Jalal rightly points out that much of Dulles's so-called newideas had been implicit in the policies pursued by former US PresidentHarry S. Truman and his administration.2 Dulles's predecessor as Secretaryof State, Dean Acheson, for example, had suggested, as early as August1950, that by linking Turkey, Iran and Iraq, a formidable shield against theSoviets might be raised at no real cost to Washington other than a fewdriblets of military and economic aid.3 There had indeed been some friction,in the past, between Britain and the United States on how the region shouldbe defended. Throughout 1952, however, both sides had drawn closer in allareas of defence co-operation, with Britain arriving at the conclusion that itwas necessary to co-ordinate defence efforts with Turkey and plan a newdefence strategy based on rapid and mobile forces stationed in Cyprus,Libya and Jordan. This scheme, the British hoped, would eventually replacetheir old plans of having a static and expensive defence line with a locus atthe Suez Canal base. Hence, Britain had begun to make friendly relationswith Iraq and Jordan a priority so that she could retain her strategicallyimportant positions in both states and stockpile there additional militarysupplies.4 A few weeks after the Dulles tour, Britain finally agreed, in theoryat least, that the collective MEDO approach should be shelved for the timebeing, and that the best course to achieve a collective security organizationwould be to work individually with certain Middle Eastern states.5

This article strives to show that the individual concerns of the originalsignatories of the Baghdad Pact, Turkey and Iraq, were equally, if not more,significant in according the 'Northern Tier' scheme its eventual shapecompared with the above-mentioned relatively vague proposals of Dulles.

Turkey had feared any Soviet advance in the Middle East ever sinceMoscow had made, in 1945, the automatic renewal of its 1925 Treaty ofFriendship and Neutrality with Turkey conditional on the latter surrendering

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228 MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES

the eastern regions of Kars and Ardahan and accepting Soviet participationin the defence of the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. Hence,the vast majority of Turks rejected Communism as a form of Russianimperial ideology, and accorded the class- and value-oriented ideologicalaspects of the Cold War less, though not entirely negligible, importance.Even after Moscow's relinquishment in 1953 of all its above-mentionedclaims, its expressed wish to establish closer co-operation with Turkey andits repeated offers of economic help did not ease Turkish suspicions. Ankarabelieved that Moscow's policy was to make such attractive proposals andlater withdraw them in an attempt to influence the course of Turkey'sforeign policy. Therefore, while other nationalisms in the developing worldwere looking to Moscow for sympathy and support against the West, theperceived Soviet threat brought Turkey closer to the West and made relianceon the latter to prevent Soviet/Russian expansionism a pillar of Turkishforeign policy.

The Turkish government considered Turkey's defence interests to beidentical with those of the West and officially endorsed the American viewthat global peace was indivisible and that trouble in any part of the worldcontained the seeds of a general conflagration.6 Turkey's two main politicalparties, the Republican People's Party (RPP) and the Democrat Party (DP),supported Turkey's membership of NATO in 1952, and accusations of'pursuing a neutralist policy' reportedly became 'a powerful insult inTurkey'.7 Turkey was therefore afraid of taking any steps which mightjeopardize its relations with Washington and told Moscow on variousoccasions that any improvement in bilateral relations could only result fromthe development of general relations between NATO countries andMoscow. The Turks were even concerned that the apparently moreconciliatory Soviet line in the post-Stalin era might confuse Westernopinion - already sick and tired of the Cold War - and undermine NATO'sresolve to build up its defences, as well as open the way to negotiationswhich might involve concessions to the Soviets.8 Moreover, Turkeyassumed that American aid to Turkey and the latter's role in the foreignpolicy calculations of the West were intimately linked. Adnan Menderes,Turkey's Prime Minister from 1950 to 1960, used to tell visiting foreigndignitaries that his country was the bulwark of defence of the Middle Eastand had, up to that point, saved the Middle East from Communistaggression. If it was to continue to play that vital role, however, then itwould be necessary to increase its economic strength.9 Turkey joined inefforts to extend the network of anti-Soviet alliances in its immediatevicinity. In the Balkans, in the early 1950s, Turkey made the BalkanDefence Pact with Greece and Yugoslavia, theoretically binding the threecountries in a mutual defence accord for twenty years.10 Ankara had also

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expressed willingness to participate in a Middle Eastern defence system asearly as February 1949, and the DP government had later played an activerole in all MEDO deliberations." The opposition RPP's disagreements withthe government on this issue were usually on points of application of policyand not on fundamental principles. It only expressed certain misgivings thatTurkey might overreach itself by undertaking additional militarycommitments to fellow Middle Eastern countries, or that the latter could tryto make use of the new arrangements in order to claim Turkey's supportagainst their own regional adversaries.12

Yet Turkey had been included as a destination in Dulles's tour only at thelast minute, and that only at the expressed insistence of Menderes. InAnkara, the American head of diplomacy held meetings with both TurkishPresident Celal Bayar and Menderes, but failed to convert them to acceptinghis new 'Northern Tier' plan and the necessity of bringing in the Arab statesin some capacity in order to make the envisaged organization politically andstrategically viable. Rather than wait any longer for the Arab states, theTurkish leaders said that they preferred to see the four Western powers, theUnited States, the United Kingdom, France and Turkey, who had formallyinitiated the Middle East collective defence scheme in 1951, proceedimmediately toward setting up a formal organization and state clearly that itwould be open to accession by all countries in the region, includingPakistan. Menderes assured Dulles that Turkey remained anxious to workwith the Arab states. The latter, however, were still not ready for co-operation.13 Hence, Turkey's official, though not publicized, reaction toDulles's 1 June television speech, outlining the new 'Northern Tier' plan,was 'rather negative'. The US ambassador in Ankara, George McGhee,reported that the Turkish leadership felt that the Americans, despiterecognizing that the establishment of MEDO with Arab participation hadnow become only a remote possibility, were failing to draw what theyconsidered the logical and necessary conclusion of going ahead with theplanned defence organization without the Arabs.14

This Turkish reluctance to work with the Arabs at this juncture certainlyneeds elaboration. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Turkey had generallyshunned from close relations with its Arab neighbours, the short-livedSa'dabad Pact (1937), which included both Turkey and Iraq, being the soleexception. Turkish intellectuals of the period thought of the Arabs asbackward, who could only progress by adopting Republican Turkey's pathof westernization, secularization and collaboration with the West. The post-Second World War Soviet threat, however, had made Turkey realize howisolated it had become from its neighbours. It had, therefore, hurriedly triedto ameliorate relations with the newly emerging sovereign Arab states bysigning friendship treaties with the Hashemite Kingdoms in Iraq (1946) and

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Jordan (1947). Turkey had since accepted, in principle, the necessity toforge close strategic links with all its Arab neighbours. Although Turkishleaders had no confidence whatever in the political or military competenceof the Arabs, they still hoped that Arab involvement in MEDO would makeSoviet infiltration into the region very difficult. Turkey's ultimate goal wasto bring all Arab countries into NATO, since it considered the concepts of aneutral Arab or a larger Islamic bloc as Utopian. It had preferred, however,up to this stage, to work separately with individual Arab countries, fearingthat if any proposal was referred to the League of Arab States, it would gonowhere. Turkey had also shared the belief that Egypt's position was thekey to the Arab world. If Cairo could be convinced to adhere to a regionalalliance, bringing in other Arab countries would be made much easier.Differences in political outlook between Turks and Arabs in general, as wellas their contrasting evaluations of threats and interests, had made thisenvisaged rapprochement extremely difficult, however. Turkey's emergingclose alignment with the West had inversely affected her relations with theArabs. Arab nationalists in many newly independent states wanted to pursuetheir own political agendas like achieving full sovereignty and solving thePalestine problem. Some of them even viewed the new global antagonismbetween East and West as a serious distraction from their own causes, intowhich, they thought, the Western powers were determined to drag them.Because Turkey had had to demonstrate her strategic importance for theWest, she had preferred not to get involved in conflicts of the newlyemerging Arab countries with the Western colonial powers, and hadattempted to placate all sides simultaneously. In the United Nationsorganization (UN), it had generally voted with the Western bloc on issueslike Egypt's refusal to let Israeli ships pass through the Suez Canal, thefuture of France's North African protectorates and Palestine. The Turkishgovernment wanted the British forces to stay in the Suez Canal base in theprevailing tense international situation, fuelling Arab fears that Turkey'srole in MEDO was indeed a cover for Western designs in the region. TheDulles visit coincided with one of those periods when the Turks had lostfaith in pursuing efforts to woo the Arabs and had concluded that, becauseof Arab reluctance, any hope of having the latter accept MEDO should beabandoned for the time being. In October 1952 Britain and Turkey hadagreed that they should proceed as occasion offered to work on individualArab states with the object of getting them to take a more realistic attitudetowards MEDO.'3 Turkey, believing that she was in a better position than theother Western powers concerned to persuade the Arabs, had then goneforward with a program designed to strengthen relations with the Arabcountries, mainly through a series of visits by top-level officials andparliamentarians, as well as cultural exchanges.16 The Arab states, however,

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had shown little inclination to respond to Turkish overtures for closerrelations; and as months had gone by, Turkey had become steadily moredisillusioned by their behaviour." Finally, Menderes had ordered thesuspension of the initiative at the end of April 1953, i.e. a month or sobefore the Dulles visit.18

Instead, in the months following the Dulles tour, Turkey moved closer toPakistan. The latter hoped that, by aligning herself with the West, she wouldreceive military aid to enlarge and re-equip her armed forces and thus be ina stronger bargaining position vis-a-vis her neighbours, India andAfghanistan, with both of whom she had territorial disputes. The UnitedStates showed interest in associating Pakistan with the chain of localdefensive arrangements, but was unwilling to do this directly. It thereforesecretly encouraged Turkey to approach Pakistan itself. The Turkish leaderswent along with this American plan. A flexible Turkish-Pakistaniagreement on bilateral defence co-operation was signed in Karachi on 2April 1954, and Washington followed by committing itself to providemilitary equipment and training to the Pakistani armed forces on conditionthat Pakistan would not undertake any act of aggression against any othernation and that the assistance received would be used exclusively tomaintain the country's security, or to permit it to participate in UN-sponsored or regional collective defence arrangements and measures."

The staunch Turkish attitude as regards future defence co-operation withthe Arab world soon underwent sufficient change, however, to make a newdemarche to Iraq to join Turkey's projected alliance with Pakistan possibleeven before the signing of any formal agreement. On 16 February 1954, theTurkish ambassador in Baghdad unofficially invited the Iraqi Premier, DrFadil al-Jamali, to join the projected Turkish-Pakistani treaty.20 Then,simultaneously with the publication of the joint Turkish-Pakistanicommunique of intent a few days later, Turkey's Foreign Minister, ProfessorFuat Kb'priilii, declared that the proposed agreement would be open to anyfriendly power that wished to join,2' and, a few days later, expressed thehope that 'the Arab countries would also one day show interest in thepact'.22

Turkey's full reversal to its old strategy of trying to bring Iraq, followedby other like-minded Arab states, into a Western-inspired Middle Eastcollective defence arrangement was formalized during a special conferenceof Turkish diplomats held in Ankara and Istanbul on 12-17 July 1954,chaired by Bayar and Menderes, and attended by other ministers, seniorforeign ministry officials, as well as the Turkish heads of mission in SaudiArabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. A consensus was reachedthat the Turkish-Pakistani agreement had stimulated some rather moreconstructive political thinking amongst the Arabs. The latter would

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probably become further impressed by friendly gestures from Turkey, likecultural contacts, invitations and exchange of visits with leaders. Thesemeasures would help erase the negative memories of past Ottomandomination in Arab lands. The conference also decided that, after havingbeen rebuffed so many times in the past, an exception should be made forEgypt in Turkey's general policy of goodwill, and this decision explained toother Arab states. It forecast that Syria, Lebanon and Jordan would continuetheir 'wait and see' policy, while Iraq, although willing to join, was simplylacking the courage to do so. The proposed rapprochement with the Arabworld must not involve, however, any change in Turkey's policy offriendship with Israel. Arab countries should acknowledge the reality of theexistence of Israel and that a solution should be found to the Arab-Israeliconflict according to the existing realities.23

The Turkish archives being inaccessible, it is difficult to find out exactlywhy the Turkish leadership changed its attitude as regards the Arabs. It maybe that the views expressed to Dulles in 1953 had simply been amanifestation of one of the occasional troughs in Turkish enthusiasm to co-operate with the Arab world on defence matters because of repeated Arabcold-shouldering. Some contemporary observers, followed by a notnegligible group of later historians, on the other hand, tried to find at leastpart of the answer in the fast deteriorating economic prospects withinTurkey of the mid-1950s.24 The Turkish government saw additional Westernaid as one of the few ways available to ease the economic hardships, and amore determined Turkish foreign policy in pursuance of Western goals wasprobably deemed very important to create the right atmosphere to gainaccess to foreign, especially American, aid.

The choice of Iraq as the first Arab country to be approached wasperhaps predictable. Of all the Arab countries, the Iraqi leadership felt mostthat the Soviet Union was a real threat to the country's independence and itsestablished political order. It believed that Iraq's rich oil reserves could lurethe Soviet regime to try to extend its influence there either through directaggression, or, more probably, through members of the banned localCommunist Party and its sympathizers, or through manipulating Kurdishnationalist sentiment in Northern Iraq. In the early 1950s Iraq was still arelatively poor country, and the establishment feared that widespreaddiscontent among the lower strata of society could be easily manipulated bypropaganda coming out of Moscow and, even more skilfully, by its localsympathizers. These fears had crystallized especially after the confrontationin Iran in the summer of 1953 between the conservative forces loyal to theShah and their radical-nationalist and left-wing opponents. The Iraqiestablishment had been shocked in seeing the Shah being forced to leave hiscountry temporarily and had feared, for a while, that the coming to power

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in Iran of the radical-leftist Tudeh (Masses) Party might have seriousconsequences in Iraq, as well as other Arab states. Soon afterwards, it hadseriously begun to look for ways to make the repetition of such events, thistime in Iraq, impossible.25

Iraq's main source of revenue, the oil royalties received from theforeign-owned Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), were, according to thecountry's leaders, not enough both to keep their development programmegoing and to equip and maintain a strong army against any possible outsidethreat. They had, therefore, shown strong interest in maintaining closerelations with the former mandatory power, Britain. British-Iraqi relationshad been governed, since the termination of the League of Nations mandatein 1932, by the 1930 Treaty of Preferential Alliance. Under its provisions,Iraq was bound to co-operate closely with the UK on foreign and defencepolicy matters, to accord the British ambassador in Baghdad 'precedence'in relation to the diplomatic representatives of other states, and to resort toBritish military and civilian advisers, whenever foreign technical assistancewas needed. Britain could also use local facilities to transport troopsthrough Iraqi territory and had retained control of the al-Shu'aybah and al-Habbaniyyah air bases.26 The 25-year treaty, due to expire in 1957, had longbeen unpopular with large segments of educated Iraqis, and bothgovernments had come to recognize that new arrangements had to be made,if the alliance was to survive. Many radical pan-Arab nationalist andreform-minded left-wing Iraqis, however, wanted to see the treaty simplyscrapped unilaterally. Under their pressure, the Treaty of Portsmouth,Britain and Iraq had negotiated in January 1948 to replace the said 1930treaty, had been repudiated by the Iraqi establishment within a few days ofits signature. The Iraqi government, however, was still keen to sign arevised agreement because it considered the alliance with Britain to be afactor of stability for the monarchic order. It first suggested to the British theidea of terminating the existing treaty and replacing it with newarrangements under the guise of a regional defence co-operation schemestipulated by Article 51 of the UN Charter immediately after the events inIran of August 1953.27 Members of the Iraqi elite, had realised, in themeantime, that American influence in the Middle East was growing veryrapidly and had therefore begun to shift some of their friendship and loyaltyto Washington. In March 1953, Iraq made clear that, in order to strengthenits armed forces, it would like in the future to receive some of its militaryequipment free from the United States, because the high cost of itsdevelopment program meant that it could not afford to continue to buy allits military needs from Britain.28 The request was repeated during Dulles'svisit in May. Moreover, Iraq had, for a long time, had almost trouble-freebilateral relations with both Turkey and Pakistan. Finally, and as far as

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military/strategic thinking was concerned, for the Turkish-Pakistaniagreement to have any effect, the signatories would have to fill the territorialgap between them sooner rather than later. The defence of the Iranianprovince of Azerbaijan, of the passes through the Zagros mountains and ofthe Tigris-Euphrates valley in Iraq and Syria were essential for protectingthe region and especially Turkey's eastern flank. Beyond the Zagros therewere no natural geographical obstacles to southern Iraq and theMediterranean. Iraq's adherence would give the agreement mentioned astrategic position in depth, air bases, and lines of communication fromTurkey to the Persian/Arab Gulf, which could be used to support vitaldefensive positions at the said passes.29

Al-Jamali was anxious to improve Iraq's relations with Turkey.30 He didnot rush, however, into an early acceptance of the proposed agreement, andeven denied publicly that Iraq had been invited to join the agreement or hadbeen acquainted with its clauses." He probably feared violent internalopposition, for although the influential landed classes in the country were infavour of both acceptance of US military aid and association with theTurkish-Pakistani pact, the radical nationalise and left-wing opposition wasnot negligible.32 A further complication was that the Turkish-Pakistaniapproach coincided with the last stages of the State Department'sdeliberations whether to approve of the March 1953 Iraqi request formilitary aid or not. The two questions became objectively interlinked. TheState Department finally authorized, in April, the signature of a $10 millionannual military assistance agreement with Iraq, on condition that Iraqshould at least declare publicly its support for regional defence co-operation.33 Dulles also warned al-Jamali that if Iraq's first move aftersigning the aid agreement was against Israel through accomplishing apolitical union with Syria, rather than toward the 'Northern Tier', the UnitedStates could still revoke the signed agreement.34 The Iraqi-American dealwas officially called an 'understanding', not an 'agreement', in view of thespecial internal legal position in Iraq. Trying to avoid criticism andopposition by all means possible, the Iraqi government preferred not to berequired to submit the agreement to the Chamber of Deputies for approval.Al-Jamali was officially told, however, that the United States considered theexchange of notes to constitute an international agreement and wouldeventually register them with the UN.35

Al-Jamali soon had to resign on matters unrelated to US aid and theTurkish-Pakistani pact, and the question of Iraqi adherence to the latteragreement had to be put on hold pending new parliamentary elections.36

This delay made Turkey restless about possible Iraqi non-adherence to theTurkish-Pakistani treaty. It questioned Washington's tactics of grantingseemingly unconditional military aid to Iraq, fearing that the latter would

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now have little incentive to join the above-mentioned treaty." Menderes andthe Pakistani prime minister, Muhammad Ali, agreed in June that 'Iraq'srecent behaviour had been unsatisfactory; since she appeared to saydifferent things to the Pakistanis, the Turks, the Americans and the British,with the obvious intention of drawing the maximum advantage out of thepresent situation, whilst avoiding any commitments."8 They also agreedthat the strongest pressure should be brought upon Iraq and that 'themoment must shortly come when Iraq should be asked to say definitelywhether it proposed to accede or not' ,39 Mejideres opined that 'Iraq indulgedmerely in expression of goodwill and put forward the excuse of its publicopinion not being ready for not joining in the defence arrangements. He didnot consider this argument valid. Public opinion in Iraq, he thought, wouldbe only too happy to see Iraq associate herself with Pakistan and Turkey.One-third of the population of Iraq was Turkish (sic!), and he knew that amajor portion of the population was in fact already in favour of thesearrangements'. On 11 June Menderes told the Iraqi ambassador in Ankarathat Iraq was not 'sufficiently conscious' of the Communist danger andwarned him that 'if Turkey collapsed countries down to the Cape of GoodHope would collapse too'.40 A month later, the General-Secretary of theTurkish Foreign Ministry, Muharrem Nuri Birgi, told British AmbassadorSir James Bowker that the Turkish government was 'anxious to put an endto disingenuous ambiguities of Iraq's attitude; even if Iraq gave negativereply to Turkish approach that would at least enable us to see where westood'.41

Strong Iraqi interest to adhere to the projected 'Northern Tier' collectivedefence scheme resurfaced in earnest late that summer with the re-appointment of the veteran Iraqi politician, Nuri al-Said, to the premiership.The new Iraqi Chamber elected in June 1954 had some very difficultproblems to tackle, especially the termination of the 1930 treaty and thenegotiation of new defence arrangements for Iraq. Prince Abdul-Uah, theCrown Prince of Iraq and the most powerful figure in the royal household,became convinced that only Nuri had the influence and the experience tomanage this tricky task. Nuri, however, was extremely unhappy with theresults of the recent elections, for his own Constitutional Union Party'snumerical strength had been reduced in the Chamber and many prominentleftist politicians, with whom he did not wish to work, had been returned.To secure Nuri's return to the premiership, therefore, Abdul-Ilah was leftwith little choice but to promise new elections even before the recentlyelected Chamber had officially convened.42

Nuri had long advocated close co-operation with the West, and withBritain in particular. He now saw in the new American readiness to providearms to individual Middle Eastern states, in return for their co-operation in

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the 'Northern Tier' project, a golden opportunity for Iraq and other Arabcountries to improve their defence capability and to influence the West toagree to some of the Arab demands in their quest for a lasting solution tothe Arab—Israeli conflict. Nun contended that the Arab League PoliticalCommittee had agreed back in 1949 that the Arab countries could not co-operate with the Communist states without themselves becomingCommunist and submitting to the dictates of Moscow, or remain neutralbetween East and West because they did not have the means to do so. Theycould, however, co-operate with the Western Bloc provided the questions ofthe Suez Canal base and Palestine were settled.43 He had hence greeted theTurkish-Pakistani agreement as an inadequate, but nevertheless positive,step towards eventual Arab co-operation with the West.44 Upon hisappointment, Nuri formally asked King Faysal II of Iraq to call newelections to give the population an opportunity to vote on his programme,which stood as follows:

(a) termination of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930 and cooperation betweenIraq and other foreign states in conformity with the provisions of Article51 of the United Nations Charter;

(b) the strengthening of relations between the Arab countries and theremoval of friction and tension between them;

(c) strengthening of relations with neighbouring states and improvement ofcooperation between them and the Arab states to repel the Zionistdanger.45

He then embarked on a chain of measures to silence all his potential criticsbefore proceeding with the new general election planned to return aChamber entirely subservient to his political whim. Included among thosemeasures were the suspension of all existing political parties (includingNuri's own) and the closing down of certain opposition newspapers.46

During the elections of \2 September almost all successful candidateslacked any record of recent opposition to the incumbent regime.47 The defacto breaking-off of Iraq's diplomatic relations with the Soviet Unionformed the final chapter in Nuri's anti-leftist drive.48

Nuri then made finding some sort of new defence arrangement with theUnited Kingdom and the United States his top priority. Soon after hisabove-described deal with Prince Abdul-Ilah in Paris, and even beforereturning to Baghdad to take up formally the post of premier, Nuri paid aprivate visit to London and had informal meetings with British ForeignOffice civil servants. At this stage his preference was 'not to join theTurkish-Pakistani Agreement, but rather to form a separate grouping withPakistan in which he hoped Her Majesty's Government would play a part'.49

He did not object to Iraq being associated with Turkey in a large regional

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grouping but disliked the idea of signing a smaller pact with Turkey, arguingthat the Turks were unpopular in Iraq and other Arab states, and were stillsuspected of harbouring irredentist designs in Northern Iraq. The assurancesNuri received later from Menderes personally, that Turkey did not entertainany territorial ambitions outside those stated in the 1920 Turkish NationalPact, did nothing to allay his fears, for the terminology of the said pact asregards the previously disputed regions of Mosul and Kirkuk was toovague.50 Nuri told the Foreign Office staff that it had been agreed, during aprivate visit he had paid to Karachi in April, that, under a treaty limited toIraq and Pakistan, 'Iraq would not undertake any obligation to go to the aidof Pakistan, but if Israel were to attack Iraq or her neighbours, Pakistanwould undertake to come to their aid, provided the United States saw noobjection, because the Pakistanis reasoned that the success of the schemedepended on American military aid.'51 Nuri said that the projectedIraq-Pakistan pact 'would be open to accession by any country interested inthe peace of the area' - except France, whom Nuri disliked for its policiesin Arabic-speaking North Africa and thought that it had nothing practical tooffer - and clarified that 'the purpose of this would be to enable the UnitedKingdom to join at a later stage'. British participation 'would provide ameans', he said, by which Iraq and Britain 'could broach the question ofrevising the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty'. For Nuri, 'a pact of this kind could be apreliminary to either of two alternative broader solutions': a regionaldefence organization based on the Arab League with Egyptian participation;or a more limited sub-regional set-up, whereby Syria and Lebanon wouldjoin the projected Iraq-Pakistan treaty and thus ensure Iraq's lines ofcommunication with the Mediterranean. Nuri said he had already spokeninformally about his plans to American and, on matters relating to Syria andLebanon, French officials. He went on to raise the possibility, perhaps toimpress upon his British hosts his determination to forge a new alliance, thatIraq might even have to leave the Arab League if Egypt refused to join theprojected grouping.52

Thus, by August 1954, the situation in the Middle East as regards apossible breakthrough in collective defence negotiations seemed to havebecome more favourable than it had ever been. Besides the renewed Turkishdetermination to court Iraq and other Arab states, and the mandate Nuri hadgiven himself to revise the treaty arrangements with Britain, a solution tothe long Anglo-Egyptian dispute on the Suez Canal base had also becomevisible on the horizon with the initialling in July of a broad Anglo-Egyptianunderstanding, whereby the British agreed to evacuate the base within twoyears. Egypt, in return, conceded the right of British troops to return to thebase in case any member-state of the Arab League Collective Security Pact(ALCSP) - signed in 1950 and including all independent Arab states except

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Libya - or Turkey were attacked from outside.53 This agreement finallychanged British strategic thinking. With the air bases Britain possessed inIraq suddenly acquiring additional strategic importance, she realized thatNuri's proposal of a 'Northern Tier' arrangement could provide the political'umbrella', under which she could secure the revision of the 1930 treatyand, hence, finally decided to go by a scheme that excluded Egypt.54 TheBritish government hoped that the new arrangement proposed by Nuriwould satisfy Iraqi nationalist opinion, while preserving the spirit of theabortive Portsmouth Treaty.55

For Nuri, however, the Anglo-Egyptian agreement unexpectedly openedup other prospects as well, which, for a while at least, seemed to usher aradical shift in his plans for defence co-operation with the West. On 14August the Egyptian Minister of National Guidance, Major Salah Salim,arrived in Sarsank, northern Iraq,56 explaining that previous Egyptianopposition to all kinds of defence arrangements with non-Arab states, mediaattacks on Iraq, and her indignant reaction to the news of theTurkish-Pakistani agreement had been made because of Egypt's fear ofisolation, but, since agreement had now been reached on the future of thebase, all those had become past history.57 Salim said that although Egyptcontinued to oppose the Turkish-Pakistani pact and all defencearrangements with non-Arab countries, she saw merit in co-operation withthe West and was ready to work towards it. He claimed to have beenaccorded full powers to reach with Iraq an understanding, written orotherwise, on the 'formulation of a general policy covering the relations ofthe Arab States with the West including the defence aspects of this policy'.58

Nuri, therefore, suggested to Salim an idea which had always appealedto him personally: modifying the ALCSP to meet the requirements ofArticle 51 of the UN Charter and permit membership of regional andWestern non-Arab states. Salim seemed to like it. Although no draftagreement was drawn up in the end, both sides agreed in principle toapproach individually both Britain and the United States to seek their viewson the modifications required in the ALCSP text in order to expand it intoan effective regional defence organization.59

Nuri was delighted with this preliminary agreement. He used with theUS ambassador every argument he could think of to make Washingtonagree to the proposal. He suggested that, in the expanded pact, with US andBritish participation, the Arab members should pledge troops and militarysupport to each other against aggression, from whatever source, as well asprovide general support to its non-Arab members. There would be noquestion of Arab troops being sent abroad, but, he said, he was quietlyconfident that, in those circumstances, Egypt would agree to thereactivation of the Suez Canal base in the event of an external attack even

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on Iran. Britain and the United States could provide military and technicalaid to the Arab members in peace-time, as well as promise to send armedforces in case hostilities broke out. Nuri told the ambassador that 'theproposed pact had the merit of concentrating attention of Arab States onSoviet menace and diverting it from Israel', and one of its functions wouldbe to prepare for peace with Israel in accordance with the spirit of the1947-49 UN resolutions calling for the partition of Palestine between two,Jewish and Arab, states, the internationalization of Jerusalem and the returnof Arab refugees to their homes. In short, Nuri supported this plan, theambassador reported, because

(i) objectives of Turkey-Pakistan Pact would be achieved more quicklyand Arab world brought into Middle East defence;

(ii) plan would accomplish objective of M.E.D.O. but would have theadvantage of being put forward by Arabs;

(iii) Israel reaction had been considered.

UK accession to the amended pact, said Nuri, would render the 1930 treatyobsolete. New arrangements could be negotiated under which the al-Shu'aybah and al-Habbaniyyah air bases would revert to Iraq, butagreements drafted by technical experts would regulate their use by Britain,as well as all other signatories. As regards French participation, Nuripreferred not to invite them, because, he said, 'French influence in Syria andNorth Africa [were] distasteful to all Arabs', and also because France, as helater told British ambassador Sir John Troutbeck, 'could make nocontribution to Middle East defence'. Nuri's proposal seemed to have thegeneral consent of Prince Abdul-Ilah. The latter, however, was moreflexible on the issue of French adherence. He thought there would be nodifficulty about including France if Britain insisted.60 Dulles, however, wasreportedly 'greatly disturbed' at this apparent moving away by Iraq from theTurkish-Pakistani pact and even entertained the idea of reminding Iraq ofthe provisions of the above-described military aid agreement.61

In order to continue to build on the understanding reached in Sarsank,Nuri visited Cairo and had a meeting on 14 September with the Egyptianprime minister, Gamal Abdul Nasser. By then, it should have been apparentto him that Salim's enthusiasm in Sarsank was not shared by his superiors.62

The Nuri-Abdul Nasser meeting turned out to be crucial. No verbatimrecord of this encounter has been published, and both parties seem to haveleft the meeting with differing perceptions of each other's position.However, the accounts of some of the junior participants in this meetingindicate that Nuri did most of the talking. Abdul Nasser, in the end, told thelatter that he was free to do whatever he wished.63 What he really meant isstill a matter for speculation, although its importance, for the purpose of

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understanding and evaluating future Egyptian foreign policy, cannot beunderestimated. Nuri himself understood it to be a green light, albeit asomewhat reluctant one. He told Sir Ralph Stevenson, the Britishambassador in Cairo, that the line he had taken with Abdul Nasser had beenthat Egypt, having reached an agreement with Britain over the Suez Canalbase, which affected all the signatories of the ALCSP, should now work forthe modification of that pact so as to improve the general defence of theMiddle East with Western assistance. Egypt would thus be able tocounteract the criticism among the Arab states that she had gone andconcluded with Britain an agreement concerning them with no priorconsultation. However, Nuri continued, if Egypt decided that the momentwas yet inopportune for such a move, Iraq would feel obliged to go aheadwith her separate arrangements with Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Heunderstood that Abdul Nasser was cautious because of his worries that theinternal situation in Egypt was not yet ripe for any advance towardsorganized Middle East defence and because of his belief that anIraq-Pakistan pact would lead to the complete side-tracking of Egypt andother Arab states.6* 'The Egyptians for domestic reasons were unwilling forthe next two years or so to consider his ideas for a regional pact,' said Nuri.He felt, however, that he would be left free to work for some form ofregional grouping, which would allow Egypt to join later, if it so desired.65

Nuri's optimism was probably not groundless, for, in an off-the-recordinterview with a representative of the Arab News Agency on 16 December1954, the British embassy in Cairo reported, Abdul Nasser had admitted tohave told Nuri that Egypt had no alternative but to be on the side of theWest, but was unable to accept his arguments that Iraq should join theTurkish-Pakistani pact. He further confessed that 'he had, however,indicated that if Iraq insisted on going ahead, Egypt would raise noobjection. He had promised that there would be no attacks on Iraq in theEgyptian press but had made it clear that Egypt would not be able to supportsuch a move by Iraq in the Arab League' [emphases added]. He alsoadmitted that he had favoured the idea of including Iran in the base-reactivation clause of any revised Anglo-Iraqi treaty.66

With the amended ALCSP option having reached a dead end, Nurireturned to some of his previous options. Immediately after leaving Egypt,he paid a lengthy visit to London, where he told Foreign Office LevantDepartment officials that he was now thinking of various possiblearrangements: one, including Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Britain; a second,embracing Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Britain; and a third, limited to Iraq,Pakistan and Britain.67 He thought that the third option was the mostpractical, and had even prepared a draft of an agreement with Pakistan withits Article 1 stating that 'Pakistan would come to the assistance of Iraq by

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all possible means if Iraq or any of its neighbours was the victim ofaggression'. Whilst in London, Nuri also had talks with the PakistaniPremier on this topic.68

It is evident that throughout his negotiations Nuri emphasized differentaspects of his projected pact to different parties. To the Americans, hestressed the Communist threat and tried to show the projected pact as ameans to overcome the Arab conflict with Israel; with Turks and Pakistanis,he sought their support against Israel; with Britain, he pushed forward theidea of revising the 1930 treaty. The US charge d'affaires in Baghdad,Phillip W. Ireland, reported on 2 November that Nuri was 'adept [to] anytailoring [of] his argument to fit [the] listener on hand'.69 Futuredevelopments unmistakably show, however, that, besides the strengtheningof his regime's standing at home, the treaty revision and the improvementof the general Arab position vis-a-vis Israel were primarily what concernedhim.™ Nuri could have, after all, simply allowed the 1930 treaty to lapse in1957. He understood well, however, that the continuation of the Britishconnection was essential for the survival of the Hashemite monarchy andthe corresponding status quo in Iraq. By claiming to have terminated theunpopular treaty, he could present it as a major national achievement, but itwas extremely improbable that he would be able to get any converts fromthe ranks of his opponents. Even after having forced the oppositionunderground, he was anxious, like al-Jamali before him, not to be obligedto pass the new arrangements with Britain through Parliament, probably toprevent the repetition of the 1948 Portsmouth Treaty fiasco. Nuri told theBritish that 'his plan was to get the Iraqi Parliament to ratify the [initial]agreement [preferably with Pakistan] and thereafter to obtain the adherenceof other Powers, including the UK. Once the UK had joined, he woulddeclare the termination of the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. The military facilitieswhich we [i.e. Britain] require in Iraq could be negotiated between generalstaffs ... and would not need to come up for political ratification at anystage.' Nuri told the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff and Chief ofAir Staff that he envisaged the future facilities British forces would enjoy inIraq to be on the lines of the Portsmouth treaty.71 Furthermore, acomparative analysis of his actions and various proposals show that Nuri,thus far, was consistently unwilling to enter an agreement limited regionallyto Iraq and Turkey, as well as against the inclusion of France in any finalarrangement.

The absence of Iran from Nun's informal soundings should be explainedonly in terms of timing. Nuri made no secret of his desire to involve theIranians in Middle East defence.72 Indeed, after the 1953 western-inspiredmilitary coup against the nationalist Iranian Premier, MuhammadMusaddiq, the Shah had reasserted effective control over Iranian foreign

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policy; resumed diplomatic relations with Britain, and was negotiating anew oil agreement with a consortium of eight western companies. He hadalso expressed a wish to join the 'Northern Tier'. Both Britain and theUnited States, however, thought that Iran, weakened economically becauseof the international oil boycott against Musaddiq's regime, could not yetsupport a large army, and hence could not contribute effectively to MiddleEast defence."

Although Nuri undeniably preferred to conclude the initial deal withPakistan, he had overlooked the fact that, among all his candidates to enterthe regional treaty he envisaged, only Turkey shared his determination toconclude an early agreement. Menderes had already sensed that Nuri wasnot only reluctant to join the Turkish-Pakistani pact outright, but 'seemedanxious to set up a rival grouping' to the latter, thus 'making a not verypositive contribution to Middle East defence'.74 When Prince Abdul-Ilahvisited Istanbul privately to enquire about the health of his first cousin,Talal, the ex-King of Jordan, Menderes insisted that he should stay as aguest of the Turkish government and took the opportunity to engage him insome political discussions.75 Menderes emphasized that it was absurd tothink that the Arab states could constitute among themselves the basis of adefence system for the Middle East. No such system could be effectivewithout Turkey and Britain. Finally, both agreed that if Nuri continued torefuse not to adhere to the Turkish-Pakistani pact, Iraq and Turkey should,instead, explore the possibilities of entering into a separate bilateralarrangement which could later be combined with the said Turkish-Pakistanipact.76

Nuri visited Istanbul himself on his way home from London in Octoberand extended his visit to ten days, reportedly to be present at the arrival ofa Pakistani military delegation.77 Menderes was determined not to miss thisopportunity, and his series of meetings with the visiting Iraqi Premierproved decisive. According to Turkish sources, it took several days ofbruising exchanges to make Nuri retreat from his preoccupation with theIsraeli threat to regional security.78 Finally, both sides agreed that theyshared the same objectives to establish 'a grouping to include all Arab statesplus Persia and Pakistan, preferably with, but if necessary without Syria ...in close association with the U.K. and the U.S.' Menderes did not press Iraqto join the Turkish-Pakistani agreement and made it plain that 'Turkey wasquite ready to modify it, or incorporate it in something else'. He also 'fullyaccepted' the principle 'that Iraqi forces should not be employed outsideIraq'.79 Menderes suggested that Turkey and Iraq should sign a pactengaging each country to come to the assistance of the other in the event ofbeing attacked. This proposal did not immediately please Nuri because ofhis suspicion of Turkish irredentist designs on Mosul.80 He agreed, however,

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that contacts should continue and that both sides should pursue contactswith other Arab countries as well. Menderes accepted an invitation toBaghdad, later fixed for 6 January. He encouraged Nuri that any newregional agreement should allow Britain to continue enjoying defencefacilities in Iraq, and said that Turkey, too, was most concerned that Britainshould not withdraw from the Middle East. 'In present circumstances,'continued Menderes, 'if there were a choice between Cyprus remaining inBritish hands or being returned to Turkey he would prefer that it shouldremain in British hands' for 'he regarded Britain's occupation of Cyprusessential for her participation in Middle East defence'. In return, Nuri askedthat Turkey support the principle of the fulfilment by Israel of UNresolutions on Palestine. According to Turkish minister of state Fatin RiistiiZorlu, 'generally speaking the talks had been very useful in dissipatingsuspicions and misapprehensions entertained by Nuri about Turkey'sposition and aims, and in establishing with him a basis of common approachto the problem of Middle East defence'.81 The British embassy in Baghdad,however, thought this appraisal was over-optimistic. Troutbeck reportedthat, even after the visit, Nuri continued to be suspicious of Turkish aims innorthern Iraq and attributed Turkish opposition to any future Iraqi-Pakistanipact to 'a certain jealousy'.82 Menderes, however, was not a politician whomissed what he thought to be even the slightest opportunity to further hisaims. His sheer determination, as well as the lack of any practicalalternatives for Nuri, proved decisive for the conclusion of the BaghdadPact early in the following year.

After this breakthrough with Nuri, Menderes had good reason to feelrelatively confident. He told Bowker on 11 December that

the atmosphere in the Middle East was improving. Until recently ithad been a case of trying to urge the Arab States along a road whichthey were reluctant to take. Now they themselves were showingwillingness to follow it on their own free will ... The TurkishGovernment considered that progress in organising regional defence,by increasing the confidence of the Arab States, would reduce theirfear of aggression from Israel and so to engender a readiness to acceptthe fact of Israel's permanent existence and the idea of a settlementwith her.83

However, even when Menderes caught the plane for Baghdad on 6 January1955, nobody, not even the Turkish Premier himself, was expecting him tosign an agreement during his visit, nor did he take with him any draft.Besides his above-mentioned negotiations with Nuri, Menderes had beenencouraged by the recent apparent thaw in Turkish-Egyptian relations andhad proposed to have a meeting with Abdul Nasser 'at any time and place

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he might choose' to try to get from him some sort of statement to the effectthat a bilateral agreement between Turkey and Iraq would not be at variancewith the Arab League.84 The delays over his projected meeting, however,and the unlikelihood of any rapid progress being made as regardspersuading the majority of Arab states to join any defence arrangementagainst Egyptian wishes had convinced him by now that he should firstfocus on signing with Iraq a bilateral pact similar to the Turkish-Pakistaniagreement.85 He hoped that the Baghdad visit would enable him to capitaliseon his achievements in the past few months, clarify Nuri's currentintentions, encourage the latter to make up his mind and thus inevitably takea further step towards his much desired agreement.86

Nuri, too, did not have any immediate plan to sign an agreement withTurkey during Menderes's visit. He did not underestimate the difficultiesposed by the sceptical state of opinion in other Arab countries and furtherthought that he was not yet sufficiently informed about the commitmentswhich the US and UK governments were prepared to accept.87 Nuri stillthought that March or April would be ideal to sign a new regional pact andthereafter terminate the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi treaty.88

Nevertheless, the Iraqi government had arranged a strenuous programmeof visits, banquets and receptions for their guests.89 No actual political talkstook place until 9 January. Menderes, however, was immediately impressedby the influence of those Iraqis who were preoccupied with Israel to theexclusion of every other international problem. So, he changed his cautiousplan, thinking that the time had come to press the Iraqi government morestrongly. Menderes, the first foreign statesman ever invited to address theIraqi Chamber of Deputies, now refused to fulfil this engagement until Nuriagreed to publish a communique to the effect that a pact would be signedsoon, while the assembled deputies were waiting.90

Were the signing of a regional pact delayed until just before theexpiration of the Anglo-Iraqi treaty, Menderes now believed, the formerwould look suspiciously like a cover for the latter," and its appeal for otherfuture potential Arab adherents would certainly diminish. Moreover,Turkish leaders had begun to suspect that Israel was increasingly trying, byindirect methods, to obstruct Turkey's attempts to improve its relations withArab states. They feared that the effects of these efforts might become moreserious if some definite progress was not made immediately.92 Indeed,Israel, which had been delighted at Turkey's involvement in the Balkans in1953, was showing serious misgivings about the Turkish determination toimprove its ties with Iraq and Pakistan. Israeli diplomats had tried toconvince Turkey that any alliance with Iraq would be worthless because ofthe latter's military weakness. It would be safer and cheaper to occupy Iraqin the event of a Soviet aggression, rather than arm the country and expect

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it to defend itself. Furthermore, any alliance with Iraq and Pakistan mightadversely affect Turkey's secular and pro-European character, embroil it inconfrontation with India and Israel; and, finally, weapons delivered to Iraqcould fall into the hands of Kurdish insurgents in Turkey.93 Turkey, whichhad always hoped that good relations with Israel would ensure it, throughthe international Zionist lobby, a good press in the West and particularly theUnited States, now suspected that the same lobby was behind articles,published in the Western press, which were critical of the Turkishgovernment's domestic economic policies.

Nuri had previously envisaged proposing to the Turks the eventualconclusion of a limited agreement covering exchange of informationbetween the two army staffs about progress made by the two sides in theirrespective defence arrangements, and free transit through both countries ofdefence material for the other for a five-year period, with their possibleextension to the United Kingdom, United States and other friendly powers.94

Under pressure from Menderes, however, he finally succumbed and put hissignature under a statement much broader in scope. What also made Nuriacquiesce was the warning sounded by his Minister of the Interior, Said al-Qazzaz, that from the security point of view, the best period to settle alloutstanding external affairs would be the first few months of 1955, becausethe radical internal opponents of the Iraqi regime had not yet recovered fromNuri's recent harsh measures.95

On 13 January 1955 a communique was published in Baghdad statingthat Turkey and Iraq had decided to conclude in the immediate future abroad treaty of co-operation, based on Article 51 of the UN Charter, tosafeguard the stability and security of the Middle East and to repel anyaggression committed against them either from within the region or fromoutside. The communique expressed hope that other states 'which havegiven proof of their determination to serve the objectives mentioned above,and are in a position to do so by virtue of their geographical position and theforces at their disposal' might sign the treaty concerned at the same timewith themselves. Otherwise, the communique made clear, Turkey and Iraqwould go on and sign a bilateral treaty 'as rapidly as possible' and wouldonly then continue their efforts to persuade the powers with the above-described criteria to join the treaty at a later date.96 On 18 January Iraqissued a separate communique reaffirming its loyalty to the UN Charter andthe ALCSP and stating that the proposed Turkish-Iraqi treaty would notconflict with either of them.97

British and American foreign policy-makers were pleasantly surprised atthis unexpected announcement. Both, however, did not wish to appearoverjoyed, despite the fact that, on the day of the publication of thecommunique, Menderes had requested the French, British and US

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ambassadors in Baghdad to suggest that their respective governmentsshould issue some form of public endorsement of its supposed constructivespirit.98 The Western powers understood that some of their other friends andallies in the Middle East would not share their optimism toward theprojected Turkish-Iraqi alliance."

Indeed Egypt confronted the said communique with fury. It appears thatEgyptian leaders had been convinced, since Nuri's Cairo visit the previousSeptember, that Iraq would not go alone in signing a defence pact with theWest.100 They had anticipated Iraq's next move to be a treaty with Britain,bringing in Turkey in the same way as the latter had been brought into theAnglo-Egyptian agreement, and now said they would have had no objectioneven to Iraq bringing in Iran in the same way.101 Cairo protested that Nuri'slatest move had gone counter to the normal sequence of events, for AbdulNasser had expected to be given time to build an Arab regionalorganization, 'not linked openly with the West but so constructed that itcould quickly fall in line with Western plans should a common dangerarise'.102 It also probably felt let down by Turkey, for the Egyptianambassador in Ankara had seen Birgi before the Turkish delegation's flightto Baghdad and, after warning him against any attempt to deal with Iraqapart from the rest of the Arab League, had received the assurance that thedelegation would keep in close touch with the Egyptian embassy inBaghdad.10' Hence, an editorial of the Egyptian newspaper al-Akhbar hadwelcomed Menderes's visit to Baghdad as a further sign of increasingfriendship between Turkey and the Arab states.104 The Turks, however, sawEgyptian embassy officials in Baghdad only once, and that only an hour ortwo before the publication of the joint communique.105 The prospect of aTurkish-Iraqi alliance left Egypt in a mood of isolation and weakened itsbargaining power vis-a-vis the West. It feared that it could not now countupon Iraqi assistance in any future Arab-Israeli conflict. There was also adistinct apprehension that the proposed treaty might be the prelude to aneventual partition of Syria between the two signatories, and hencesignificantly increase Iraq's standing and influence within the Arab world.106

Egypt embarked, therefore, on a campaign to force Iraq to retreat fromcommitments it had made in the 13 January communique or, failing that, toisolate it from the rest of the Arab world. Abdul Nasser called for animmediate meeting of Arab prime ministers in Cairo to discuss futurecommon Arab defence policy following the Turkish-Iraqi communique.107

Nuri feared that the projected Cairo meeting would resemble a courtsession with Egypt sitting at the prosecutor's chair. His fortuitous illnessprovided him with a timely excuse not to attend. Under pressure fromLondon - which had not entirely discounted yet the possibility of eventuallybringing Egypt into a regional defence arrangement and thought that Cairo

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might only be contesting the timeliness, and not the strategic aims of theTurkish-Iraqi communique - and some Arab capitals, Nuri later agreed tosend al-Jamali to Cairo, but gave him no authority at all to negotiate acompromise deal. Al-Jamali was asked to keep Syria, Lebanon and Jordanaway from bowing to Egyptian pressure, rather than make explanations tothe latter. If Egypt became more co-operative, Nuri planned, he would bewilling to take a little time to help it forward, but if it persisted in opposingor remaining aloof, he would move on very quickly.108 Al-Jamali told theCairo meeting that the proposed Turkish-Iraqi agreement was nothing morethan a practical projection of the traditional Iraqi policy and of its existingtreaty relationship with Turkey. The draft agreement, which Iraq wouldpropose to the Turks, contained only two innovations: exchange ofinformation on defence dispositions and preparations, and free passage ofmilitary supplies through either party's territory to the other.109

The Arab delegations in Cairo failed to reach a consensus and sent avery high-level four-man delegation to Baghdad as a last attempt to bridgethe existing differences.110 No further progress was made, however, and thedelegation returned empty-handed to Cairo.111 Nuri made clear that he wouldproceed with the proposed pact and firmly declined all suggestions forpostponement."2

The Cairo Conference thus ended inconclusively on 6 February. Despiteits failure to produce a resolution or even a final communique, however, itproved significant in shaping the balance of power in the Arab world.Smaller states like Syria, Jordan and Lebanon were left in no doubt on thestrength of Egyptian (and Saudi) feeling against the projected pact. Themood in Cairo also convinced Nuri that it would serve absolutely nopurpose to postpone negotiations and the conclusion of the proposed pactwith Turkey, thus bringing him in line with Menderes's thinking. From thenon, Turkey and Iraq proceeded at full speed towards the conclusion of thepromised pact.

Menderes wished to see the treaty concluded by mid-February.113 He wasnow convinced, based on his past experience, that the best way to deal withNuri was to maintain constant pressure. Therefore, he reportedly sent Nuri anaverage of two messages a day insisting on the necessity for utmost speed."4

In the meantime, the Turkish ambassador in Cairo, Rifki Zorlu, was veryactive on the fringes of the Arab Premiers' Conference trying to recruit asmany Arab states as possible to adhere to the proposed treaty or at least takea position independent of Egypt. Both Iraq and Turkey wanted to extend theprovisions of the future treaty as soon as possible to the United States andBritain, as well as to other Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Pakistanand possibly Syria. Both preferred to have the two Western powers as originalsignatories, although they would not object to them joining a little later.

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Nuri had initially had a more relaxed time-table in mind. He had told thenew British ambassador, Sir Michael Wright, that he would prefer signatureto take place during President Bayar's projected official visit to Iraq at theend of March."3 The Egyptian threat, however, expressed during the CairoConference, to withdraw from the ALCSP encouraged him to quicken thepace. He hoped that a hasty conclusion of the treaty would put greatpressure on Abdul Nasser to carry out his vow to leave, thus self-inflictingserious political isolation from the rest of the Arab world."6

The actual negotiations began in early February. They were conductedin complete secrecy through the embassies in Baghdad and Ankara. Bothsides kept in close touch with the British and American diplomatsaccredited in their respective capitals as representatives of two veryinfluential possible future members of the proposed pact. Another not lessimportant, albeit practical, reason was that the text of the treaty was to bewritten in English, and neither side had cipher facilities in that language intheir respective embassies. It is through the telegrams and reports sent toand from the British Foreign Office and the British missions in Iraq andTurkey, kept at the Public Record Office in London, that an accurate stage-by-stage picture of these negotiations can be reconstructed.

Nuri had presented to the Turkish delegation, before its departure fromBaghdad on 14 January, a rough draft (Nl), giving them also a free hand topropose any amendment they considered necessary."7 The draft (Nl)consisted of a preamble and five articles and was based on Nuri's originalideas of quite limited defence co-operation between Iraq and Turkey. In thepreamble, both sides stressed their conviction of the necessity to conclude atreaty based on the principles enshrined in the 1946 Turkish-Iraqi Treaty ofFriendship and Good-Neighbourliness, Article 51 of the UN Charter and theAnglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954, which, said the draft (Nl), 'consideredthat any attack on Turkey or any other member State of the Arab Leagueshould necessitate taking defensive measures to preserve peace and securityin this region'. Its main provisions, stipulated in Articles 1 and 2, stood asfollows:

Article 1Consultations and discussions shall be held between the respectivecompetent military authorities of the two high contracting parties forthe purpose of obtaining reciprocal information regarding securitymeasures and defence plans in countries of the high contractingparties. Exchange of views and information shall also be carried outfor the sake of benefiting from the technical experience and progressachieved by any of the two high contracting parties in the field ofdefensive armaments.

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Article 2The high contracting parties undertake to furnish all facilities andassistance for the passage of arms, military equipment, supplies andother material used for defensive purposes pertaining to theirrespective armies, through the territory of the other party withoutbeing subject to customs and any other duties.

Article 3 stipulated that the treaty should be open for accession to anymember state of the Arab League or any other state concerned with securityand peace in the region, while Article 4 set the period during which thetreaty would remain in force as five years, automatically renewable tosuccessive five-year periods unless one of the signatories notified its desireto terminate it six months before the date of expiration. The last article dealtwith the conditions for ratification and exchange of ratified documents."8

Nuri later told Wright that one of his reasons for proposing a five-yearperiod was his desire to see the first renewal of the projected pact before theAnglo-Egyptian agreement expired in 1961 so as to set a pattern for renewalbefore the future of the latter agreement came into question.'19

This draft (Nl) was unsatisfactory to the Turks. They had alwayscontemplated a treaty very much on the lines of the 1954 Turkish-Pakistanipact and perhaps even more precise, owing to the existence of a commonfrontier between the contracting parties.120 They, therefore, produced anamended, stronger and more specific text (Ml) and dispatched it, on 6February, to Baghdad, as well as to the British and American governments.The Foreign Office had, meanwhile, brought into the attention of thenegotiating sides that the draft (Nl) did not provide the 'umbrella', underwhich Nuri had promised to revise the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi treaty.121

The amended Turkish draft (Ml) omitted in its preamble the referenceto the Anglo-Egyptian agreement and completely redrafted Article 1,inserting two additional new articles to give it the following appearance:

Article 1.The contracting parties undertake to cooperate in accordance with theprovisions of Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations inconfronting any armed aggression against one of them inside oroutside the Middle East region.Article 2.In order to ensure effective realization and application of cooperationenvisaged in Article 1 above the competent authorities of thecontracting parties shall establish military plans and determine therequisite measures immediately after entry into force of the presenttreaty. These plans and measures shall be operative as soon as they

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have been approved by the Governments of the contracting partiesand may moreover be the subject of special agreements.Article 3.Exchange of views and information shall be carried out between therespective competent military authorities of the contracting parties forthe purpose of benefiting from the technical experience and progressachieved by either of the parties in the field of defensive armament.The contracting parties shall consult and cooperate together in orderto satisfy, as far as possible, the needs of each of them in theproduction of arms and munitions as well as in military training andeducation.

Article 2 of the Iraqi draft (Nl) was kept as the new Article 4. Article 5stipulated that the provisions of the treaty did not contradict their pastinternational engagements and that the contracting parties would undertakenot to conclude any future international engagements incompatible with theproposed treaty, while Article 6 added the new provision that any newaccession should take place after agreement between the contracting partiesand the state applying for accession.122

Both the British and American governments preferred the Turkish text(Ml). The Foreign Office was especially satisfied because it did provide thenecessary 'umbrella'.123 It was also at this stage that the UK definitelyinformed the two negotiating parties that she 'would prefer to accede to theproposed treaty at a later date,' after the completion of the revision of thetreaty with Iraq.124

Nuri did not consider this amended draft (Ml) proper for a bilateraltreaty with Turkey. He considered it very important to have a reference, inthe preamble, to the Anglo-Egyptian agreement, because he could thusconvince all doubters that his policies did not differ in essence from thosepursued by Egypt. He could not accept Article 1 in its amended form,because, he thought, the clause 'in confronting any armed aggressionagainst one of them from inside or outside the Middle East region' was aclear reference to Israel, which could not, according to Nuri, be a matter ofbilateral concern between Iraq and Turkey. Article 2 of the Turkish draft(Ml) was far beyond what Nuri was prepared to concede to the Turks. Alsounacceptable was the newly-added provision in Article 6. With all theseobjections in mind, Nuri put to Menderes a clear choice: either to give moretime for bilateral negotiations to continue or to agree to the original Iraqidraft (Nl).125

Menderes was upset. The original Iraqi draft (Nl) had been quiteunacceptable to his government. To sign it now would mean a retreat forTurkey from the provisions of the 13 January communique. Furthermore,

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Nuri's draft did not contain the 'umbrella' clause insisted upon by London.With Britain and America concurring that Turkey should be prepared togive more time to Iraq rather than sacrifice the chance of a workableagreement for the desirability of a quick conclusion, the Turks asked themboth to instruct their representatives in Baghdad to try to soften Nuri'sattitude.126

In this, Wright succeeded. Nuri backed down a little. Late on the nightof 9 February he presented to his cabinet for approval a new compromisedraft (N2) he had worked out with Wright that afternoon, as well as analternative text somewhat like the compromise draft (N2) but nearer to theTurkish wording. Discussion in the cabinet was not detailed, but a generalagreement was reached to send both texts to Ankara the following day.127

The compromise draft (N2) restored the reference to the Anglo-Egyptianagreement in the preamble. New Articles 1 and 2 were inserted to replaceArticles 1 and 2 of the Turkish draft (Ml). They read as follows:

Article 1.The high contracting parties will cooperate for their defence andsecurity in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.Such measures as they agree to take to give effect to this cooperationmay form the subject of special agreement with each other.Article 2.The measures which will be taken between Turkey and Iraq will bethose contained in Articles 3 and 4 below.

The Articles 3 and 4 mentioned above were the Articles 1 and 2 of theoriginal Iraqi draft (Nl) calling only for consultations and discussionsbetween the military authorities and free passage of military equipment.Article 5 was the same Article 5 of the Turkish draft (Ml) stipulating thatthe treaty did not contradict the past international engagements of thecontracting parties and that the latter would not conclude any future treatyincompatible with the one being negotiated. Article 6 kept only the firstsentence of the corresponding article of the Turkish draft (Ml), thuseliminating the provision that any new accession should first be agreed bythe members of the pact.128

It was this compromise text (N2) that was communicated eventually byNuri to the Turkish government. He ultimately decided to keep thealternative draft in reserve.129 The Turkish government received the newproposals by telephone from their ambassador in Baghdad in the morning of10 February.130 Nuri hoped that, provided the Turks agreed, signature couldtake place in Baghdad within the next few days.131 It was not to be.Menderes, Birgi and their assistants found Articles 2, 3 and 4 discriminatoryagainst Turkey, since they imposed a severe limitation on the scope of future

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defence co-operation between Turkey and Iraq, while granting the latter, atthe same time, a free hand to negotiate broader agreements with other futuremembers under the 'umbrella' provided in Article 1. Birgi told Bowker thatMenderes realized that Nuri's reason for inserting Article 2 was his morbidsuspicions of Turkish designs on northern Iraq. Menderes was ready,continued Birgi, to give Iraq a fresh categorical guarantee of respect ofterritorial integrity, although, according to the Turkish government, thatwould in fact be a repetition of Article 1 of the 1946 Turkish-Iraqi treaty.132

It seemed for a moment that the negotiations had reached a deadlock.The only concession Nuri was prepared to make at that stage was to omitArticles 2, 3 and 4 of the draft (N2) from the pact itself and embody thesubstance of its Articles 3 and 4 in a protocol or annex, but even thatproposal he wanted to be made to the Turks indirectly through the British.133

By now, the British government had remained the only potential mediator.Washington indicated that while strongly supporting the pact, it did not wishto be an original signatory to or join the pact at an early date because thatmight be interpreted as suggesting that the pact had been imposed fromoutside the area.1*4 The Foreign Office preferred not to interfere to try topatch up this latest disagreement between Turkey and Iraq, except to informboth sides that the new Article 1 proposed in Nuri's latest draft (N2) wassatisfactory from its point of view.135 And in order not to complicate mattersfurther, it did not even inform the British embassies in Ankara and Baghdadthat during secret UK-US-Turkish staff talks that had begun in London on18 January the Turkish delegation had put forward a plan whereby Turkishforces would enter Iraq on or before the outbreak of a general war with theCommunist Bloc to take over responsibility for the defence of theRowanduz and Penjwin passes in the Zagros mountains.136

Menderes made a fresh attempt to break the deadlock. He sent his Iraqicounterpart what he called a friendly message, asking whether it was reallyNuri's intention that their work together over the last weeks and monthsshould culminate in a treaty on the lines of the revised draft (N2). If it wasso, Menderes continued, then there must be some thought in Nuri's mindwhich the latter had not expressed. Menderes said that the Turkishgovernment would look ridiculous if it signed such an agreement, and wenton to point out that 'Articles 3 and 4, though inessential, were acceptablewhen following after the Turkish Article 2 [of the draft (Ml)]'. In Nuri'srevised draft (N2), however, they had fixed the limit to which defence co-operation between Turkey and Iraq should go.137

Nuri was unmoved. He was reportedly in a mood of suspicion of theTurks, nervous that the latter were trying to inveigle him into some wordingwhich could subsequently be interpreted as permitting entry of Turkishforces into Iraq in wartime. He even spoke of abandoning the idea of a pact

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with Turkey altogether. Prince Abdul-Ilah, who was in all probability lesssuspicious of Turks than Nuri, and the Turkish ambassador, MuzafferGoksenin, appealed to Wright to try and calm Nuri. Accordingly, Wrighthad a long talk with Nuri on 15 February. Nuri reaffirmed that he wouldnever agree to any clause which could be interpreted as permitting entry ofTurkish forces in Iraq in any situation. He even proposed at one stage in thesaid meeting to write in the pact itself a provision that neither countryshould send forces into the opposite country in time of war. Wright tried topersuade Nuri that Turkey's main preoccupation was to avoid a wordingthat appeared discriminatory against or derogatory to herself. In the end,Nuri promised to propose to Goksenin the following day a revised draft(N3) which omitted Articles 2, 3 and 4 of his previous draft (N2), thusleaving to both sides freedom to conclude a special agreement betweenthem derived from Article 1 of the pact in the same way as any futureagreement between Iraq and Britain. He stated that if Turkey could notaccept his latest proposal (N3), he would have to give up the idea of abilateral pact altogether and seek instead a pact with Britain and Pakistan.138

The acting Iraqi foreign minister, Burhan al-Din Bash A'yan, handed thenew proposal (N3) to Goksenin in the morning of 16 February.139 The nextday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry informed their ambassador that Nuri'slatest draft was acceptable to them, subject to minor points which could besettled when Menderes revisited Baghdad to sign the treaty. The points theTurks had in mind were the references in the preamble to the Anglo-Egyptian agreement and the ALCSP. They thought it would be inappropriatethat an agreement between Turkey and Iraq should refer to agreements towhich Turkey was not a party or to Iraq's obligations under the ALCSPunder Article 4 of Nuri's latest draft (N3). They also claimed that anyreference to the Anglo-Egyptian agreement would almost certainly be seizedby Egypt 'to cause further trouble'.140 The British had also been worried bythe reference to the Anglo-Egyptian agreement and had previouslyunsuccessfully tried to persuade Nuri to omit it.141 Foreign Minister Kopriiliiassured Bowker that Menderes, once in Baghdad, would do his best toinduce Nuri to drop these points, but he preferred not to refer to themspecifically before departing for Baghdad lest it might cause further delay.142

Nuri, however, had another major surprise to pull out of his hat. On 18February, the Iraqi government passed to Goksenin two further amendmentsto the proposed text of the pact. The first was an alternative wording of theparagraph 4 of the preamble, referring to the Anglo-Egyptian agreement. Itread as follows:

And whereas the Agreement concluded between Her BritannicMajesty's Government and the Egyptian Government has considered

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that any armed attack or a threat on Turkey or any member State ofthe Treaty of Joint Defence between the Arab League States shouldnecessitate the affording by Egypt to the United Kingdom of suchfacilities as may be necessary in order to place the Suez Canal base ona war footing to operate it effectively.

The second proposed amendment was an addition at the end of Article 5 ofthe draft (N3) specifying that any state 'concerned with security and peacein this region' that wanted to accede to the treaty must be 'fully recognisedby both of the High Contracting Parties', a clear indication that Israel(which was not recognized by Iraq) could not accede to the treaty. Inaddition, Nuri proposed drafts of two letters to be exchanged betweenMenderes and himself in connection with the pact. In the first letter (LI),addressed by Nuri to Menderes, the Iraqi Premier stated he had 'the honourto place on record that in order to ensure the maintenance of peace andsecurity in the Middle East region, and to eliminate the causes of friction inthe said region, we have agreed to work in close cooperation for effectingthe carrying out of the United Nations resolutions concerning Palestine.'The second proposed letter was to be addressed by Menderes to Nuriacknowledging the receipt of the first letter and confirming its content.143

The Turkish government was not surprised. On 19 February ittelegraphed Baghdad expressing agreement with Nuri's new proposals andinforming him that they too had a few amendments on some 'technicalpoints', which Menderes would be glad to discuss in Baghdad. It also askedin particular that the visit should be kept secret and not announced beforeMenderes's arrival.144

The reference in the 13 January communique to resisting any aggressionfrom inside the Middle East region had given rise to some disquiet inIsrael.'45 Israeli diplomats did not agree with the theory that anyTurkish-Arab rapprochement would bring benefits to their country. On thecontrary, they feared (rightly as it turned out eventually) that Arabs wouldinfluence Turkey away from friendship with Israel. Israeli leaders believedthat the references concerned were undoubtedly inserted in the 13 Januarycommunique on Nuri's insistence in order to reinstate himself with otherArab states. They feared, however, that in the future, countries like Syria,Lebanon and Jordan, which were quite unconcerned about Sovietaggression and were obsessed by Israel, would do their best to see that thesaid references were given more significance than was originallyintended.146 When the Israeli minister in Ankara had communicated his fearsto Menderes - before the final negotiations had got under way — and askedhim if it was intended to incorporate these references in the future pact, thelatter had replied that it was not his wish that they should be incorporated,

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but had only given a 90 per cent assurance that in the event of Iraq askingthat they should, he would refuse.147

London and Washington were worried too about the future repercussionsof any reference to Palestine in the pact. The Foreign Office thought thatNuri's proposal would prejudice the prospects of their ongoing efforts tosecure a settlement to the Palestine question,148 which were based onsupporting the armistice regime established in 1948-49, as well as onputting forward, when possible, practical suggestions designed to reducefrontier tension, in the hope that a prolonged period of calm on the frontiersmight create an atmosphere favourable to a settlement.149 Dulles, in turn, hadtold Abba Eban, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, that he consideredthe Turkish-Iraqi pact would tend to weaken the solidarity of the ArabLeague against Israel and was confident that, as things developed, Israelwould realise that this trend was to her benefit.150 Now, the State Departmentinstructed American embassies in Baghdad and Ankara to inform theirrespective governments that, in the US view, the text of the pact should bewithout any reference to Palestine; and that, if there must be some reference,it should be in a separate instrument quite distinct and without reference tothe pact.151 A Foreign Office telegram to the British embassy in Ankaraunderlined that the 'main value of pact, from the point of view of buildingup under defence arrangements, is that it turns Arab eyes away fromPalestine towards the outside danger'.152

Menderes had expected Nuri to propose inserting some provision on thePalestine question all along and was convinced that this would be areasonable price to pay in return for the gains to be made by establishing aregional anti-Communist defence pact. He thought the letters wereimportant to boost Nuri's position.153 The acting Secretary-General of theTurkish Foreign Ministry, Melih Esenbel, argued to Bowker that the letterswere not part of the pact; that they went no further than the Baghdadcommunique and merely repeated previous statements by the Turkishgovernment of general support for the 1947-49 UN resolutions onPalestine.154

Once the Turkish government had agreed to the proposed exchange ofletters, however, the Iraqis began to ask that they should be included as anannex to the pact. This latest proposal made the Turks unhappy because ofall its complications both for their future bilateral relations with Israel andfor the prospects of UK and US accession to the pact. The Foreign Office,too, felt obliged at this juncture to remind the negotiating parties that if theexchange of letters in their present form should form an annex or part of thepact Britain could not accede to the pact itself in the future.1" Underpressure, Nuri retreated to his old idea of exchanged letters referring to thepact, but quite separate and distinct from it.156

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Menderes assured Bowker, the day before his visit to Baghdad, that hewould first try to defer the question of an exchange of letters for laterconsideration, but failing to do this, he would then put forward a reviseddraft letter (L2) suggested by Bowker himself, which clearly watered downthe concealed anti-Israeli wording of Nuri's text by stating only that:

Sir, I have the honour to place on record my understanding that thetreaty signed between us today will enable our two countries tocooperate in resisting any aggression directed against either of ourcountries whether from outside or inside the Middle East area, andthat the Treaty will serve to establish stability in the Middle East in amanner in conformity with the principles of the Charter of the UnitedNations and the decisions based on those principles.157

The Foreign Office Levant Department civil servants considered that therevised text was 'as innocuous as we can hope for', but still wanted to tryto further omit the words 'and the decisions based on those principles'. Inthat case, they reasoned, although the Israeli government wouldundoubtedly still see what was behind those assertions, it might takecomfort from the fact that there was no direct reference to the resolutions onPalestine and not therefore react too violently.158

Nuri, however, remained adamant. He told Wright that he had receivedthe unanimous support of his cabinet and the elder statesmen in Iraq on 21February for the final text of the pact, so he would risk losing his backingin Parliament by consenting to substantial alterations or to thepostponement of the exchange of letters. Furthermore, he said, he believedthat the exchange of letters might be decisive in inducing the Soviet Unionand the Arab countries to refrain from attacking the pact, and perhaps in oneor two cases, induce them to join it.159

On 23 February Menderes returned to Baghdad, accompanied by Zorlu,Koprulii and Esenbel.160 They succeeded only in convincing the Iraqi side todrop finally the reference to the Anglo-Egyptian agreement in the preamble.Nuri refused to make any further major concessions. Hence, the discussionswere mainly limited to sorting out some still unresolved 'technicalities' inthe text. Nuri also refused categorically to consider the new version (L2) ofthe letters to be exchanged - without, of course, knowing that its drafter hadbeen Bowker. The Turkish delegation came finally to the conclusion that topostpone the exchange would mean postponing the pact itself, and perhapseven losing it altogether. They were only able to make Iraq agree on awording, which the Turkish side considered to be 'a slight improvement onthe original text'. The final version read as follows:

Sir, in connexion with the Pact signed by us today, I have the honour

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to place on record our understanding that the Pact will enable our twocountries to cooperate effectively in resisting any aggression directedagainst either of them, and that, in order to ensure maintenance ofpeace and security in the Middle East region, we have also agreed towork in close cooperation for effecting the carrying out of the UnitedNations resolutions concerning Palestine.

The British and American ambassadors were in agreement that, in theprevailing circumstances, Menderes could not have obtained a better deal.161

Some of the discussed 'technicalities' were related to the Iraqi desire tohave one text of the pact to be in Arabic. Thus, difficulties were generatedbecause of the existence of a dual case in Arabic, in translating some of itsclauses, for the agreement although negotiated originally on a bilaterallevel, was actually intended to serve as the basis for a future multilateralarrangement.162 The Iraqi side also convinced the Turks to use the word'pact' (mithaq) instead of 'treaty' (mu'ahadah), partly because the termmu'ahadah comes from the root 'ahd, meaning a 'pledge' or 'undertaking',while the word mithaq comes from the root wathq, meaning 'trust' or'confidence,' but even more importantly because both previous 'unequal'and highly unpopular Anglo-Iraqi treaties of 1930 and 1948 had been styledas mu'ahadah-s.U3 The only new provision of significance was the addition,on Turkish insistence, of a new article that a permanent council atministerial level would be set up when the number of member states of thepact reached four. The Iraqi side did not like a Turkish suggestion thatunequivocally stated that the treaty should remain valid if one member-state(assuming there were more than two at that stage) withdrew,164 but, in theend, a compromise was also reached on that point. The marathon ofintensive discussions and consultations ended in the evening of 24 February,and the pact was signed at 11.30 p.m.165 Menderes returned to Ankara thenext morning.

In its final form, the Pact of Mutual Co-operation between Iraq andTurkey referred in the preamble to the 1946 Turkish-Iraqi treaty, Article 11of the ALCSP and Article 51 of the UN Charter. It specified in Article 1 thatthe signatories would co-operate for their security and defence inaccordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter and to conclude specialagreements to that effect. Accordingly, the competent authorities of themember-states would determine the measures to be taken as soon as the pactwent into force. These measures would become operative just after beingapproved by the respective governments. The contracting parties undertookto refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs and to settle theirdisputes peacefully in accordance with the UN Charter. Article 4 declaredthat the pact was not in contradiction with any of the international

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obligations the member-states already had, and that the contracting partieshad undertaken not to enter into any future obligations incompatible withthe pact. Article 5 left the pact open for accession to any member of theArab League or any other state actively involved with the security and peacein the region and which was fully recognized by both contracting parties. APermanent Ministerial Council would be set up as soon as at least fourpowers became members of the Pact. The pact was to remain in force for afive-year period, renewable for other five-year periods. Any member-statethat wished to withdraw had to notify the other members in writing of herdesire to do so six months before the pact was due to expire. In that case,the pact would remain valid for the other member-states. The last article,Article 8, specified the procedure of ratifying the treaty and the exchange ofratifications.166

Both governments were anxious to ratify the pact as soon as possible, soratification took place on 26 February, only two days after the signature.Both, however, had to overcome criticism from their respectiveparliamentary critics that the provisions of the pact dealing with the extentof co-operation were ambiguous.

In the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the vote of approval wasunanimous.167 Menderes, however, had to assure members of the oppositionRPP that the pact did not mean additional obligations for Turkey beyond herfrontiers. There was no automatic obligation under the wording of the treatyto give military aid to Iraq in the event of an attack on the latter, he said. Thepact was an alliance for defence and, once it had been ratified, thegovernment would have the power to negotiate and conclude necessarymeasures. On the issue of the exchanged letters, the opposition contendedthat they were binding only to the government in power, while Menderesargued that they implied no change in Turkish policy towards Israel. Turkey,he said, had always supported, as a matter of principle, the United Nations,including, by implication, its resolutions on Palestine.168

In Iraq, Nuri tried to avoid an open debate as much as possible, despitethe fact that he had to deal only with a Chamber of Deputies he had almost'appointed' the previous autumn. He asked that the bill to ratify the pactshould first be discussed in the Foreign Affairs Committee, which submitteda unanimous recommendation of approval. Later, in the plenary session, hestressed that the pact did not contradict Iraq's traditional policy of co-operation with the other Arab states. Iraq was undertaking no obligationsbeyond her frontiers and would be solely responsible for her defence. Nostates could dictate upon Iraq the conditions or extent of defence co-operation as Article 1 provided that separate agreements may and not 'must'be concluded between the member-states. He expressed the hope that Iran,the United States and Britain - the latter, after the termination of the 1930

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treaty - would accede to the new pact in the near future. In the event of anyor all Arab states acceding to the pact, co-operation between them woulddiffer as it had already been defined in the ALCSP. Turkey's policy, he said,was not contradictory to the interests of the Arab states and Turkey wassincere and honest in pursuing this direction. Only three deputies spokeagainst ratification, expressing fears that Iraq was distancing herself fromthe Arab League. Still, the Chamber voted in favour of ratification by 112votes against only four. The same evening, the pact was also debated in theSenate, the upper house, and received an affirmative vote of 25 againstone.169 Instruments of ratification were exchanged in Ankara on 15 April1955 between the Turkish Foreign Minister and the Iraqi ambassador.170

Meanwhile, Nuri had already embarked on the second stage of his pre-conceived plan, i.e. the negotiation with the UK of a new military co-operation agreement to replace the unpopular 1930 treaty. The agreementwas signed on 30 March and came into effect on 5 April, the day of officialUK accession to the Turkish-Iraqi pact. Iraq formally assumedresponsibility for her own defence and took over the two air bases at al-Habbaniyyah and al-Shu'aybah. The agreement, however, continued toprovide so-called close defence co-operation between both countries,including planning, combined training, and the provision by Iraq of allfacilities agreed upon between the two governments for the declared purposeof maintaining Iraq's armed forces in a state of efficiency and readiness.Britain agreed to withdraw fully from the bases within a year, but a unit of850 personnel was to stay behind after the withdrawal to help in maintainingthe bases and to assist in training the air crew and servicing the aircraft. Theagreement stipulated that, in the event of an attack on Iraq or a threat of it,Britain, at the request of Iraq, would assist her ally and even provide armedforces if necessary. In return, Iraq conceded to British military aircraft theright of landing, overflying and servicing on its territory.171

Nuri had originally hoped that this indirect approach would save himfrom putting the new agreement before the Iraqi Chamber and would thusgreatly diminish the chances of repetition of the riots that led to the collapseof the Portsmouth treaty. At some late stage before the final signature,however, his legal advisers told him that the Iraqi Constitution made itbinding upon him to present this agreement to parliamentary scrutiny. So,on 30 March Nuri called a joint session of both Houses of Parliament andbulldozed through a unanimous decision of approval, when, under normalprocedure, he should have presented the bill to each House separately.Furthermore, he took the precaution of presenting to scrutiny the text ofonly the Special Agreement and not those of the accompanying twomemoranda, defining the conditions of military co-operation, although thelatter texts had already been made public in London.172

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The Anglo-Iraqi Special Agreement, despite having striking similaritieswith the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Suez Canal base signed a fewmonths before, went further in defining the areas of defence co-operationbetween the two signatories. This is understandable, as Nuri, unlike theEgyptians, was convinced of the necessity of prolonging Iraq's alliance withBritain. In real terms, the Special Agreement was only a slight improvementon the abortive Portsmouth treaty of 1948 as regards safeguarding Iraq'ssovereign rights to manage her foreign and defence policy, but unlike thelatter, the legal basis of the Special Agreement's continued implementationwas now tied completely to Iraq's wish to remain a member of the BaghdadPact, and was hence annulled when Iraq eventually left the pact in 1959.

Nuri could not get any British concessions as regards the Palestinequestion, however. On the contrary, Eden told the House of Commons on 30March that the Anglo-Iraqi agreement was likely to be, from the point ofview of Israel, a desirable development because 'it is the first time an Arabstate is looking in other directions than simply towards Israel'.1"

Nuri thus secured the continuation of the British alliance with theHashemite monarchy. By the end of 1955 Iran and Pakistan, too, hadsubscribed to the Turkish-Iraqi pact (now officially renamed the BaghdadPact), making it possible to set up the envisaged multilateral pact structures.The United States, however, never joined the pact officially, which proved amajor point of weakness for the latter. No separate Turkish-Iraqi specialagreements were concluded as foreseen under the pact's provisions, provingthat both countries had entered it as a tactical move and not as an end in itself.In fact, three weeks after the signature and ratification of the Pact, Nuri wastelling the visiting Syrian Foreign Minister, Khalid al-'Azm, that the pactwould be confined only to the exchange of information and providing facilitiesfor transport of military equipment.174 Turkey always advocated turning theBaghdad Pact into an elaborate multilateral defence organization, but she alsorecognized the need to bring in additional Arab members (particularly Jordanand Syria) into the pact to make the latter viable and frustrate Egypt's desireto isolate Iraq from the rest of the Arab world. Nuri, however, failed to win thehearts and minds of any of his Arab critics at home or abroad. The Anglo-IraqiSpecial agreement had re-enforced the link in Arab eyes between the BaghdadPact and previous 'unequal' military alliances imposed by former colonialpowers and made future Arab adherences to the pact extremely unlikely. Nuri,therefore, remained always cautious in immersing his country into elaborateregional defence structures without open Arab support. These particularistinterests and the differing approaches emanating therefrom created tensionswithin the pact to the extent that Iraq's membership eventually came to be seenas a burden by other members in the pact and her withdrawal after the 1958revolution was not much regretted.

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NOTES

1. See printed extracts from Dulles's 1 June 1953 television address in J.C. Hurewitz (ed.).Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record, Vol.11: 1914—1956(Princeton, Toronto, New York and London, 1956), pp.337-42.

2. Ayesha Jalal, 'Towards the Baghdad Pact: South Asia and Middle East Defence in the ColdWar, 1947-1955', International History Review, Vol.11, No.3 (Aug. 1989), p.428.

3. Ibid., p.418.4. David R. Devereux, The Formulation of British Defence Policy Towards the Middle East,

1948-56 (London, 1990), p.l 18.5. Ibid., pp. 156-7.6. FO371/130I79/RK1022/1, Bowkerto Lloyd, 7 Jan. 1957.7. FO371/136456/RK1022/2, Chancery, Ankara to Southern Department, FO, 11 Feb. 1958.8. FO371/112921/WK1011/l,HelmtoEden, 1 Jan. 1954;FO371/124005/RK1022/2, Bowker

to Lloyd, 5 March 1956.9. George C. McGhee, The US—Turkish-NATO Middle East Connection: How the Truman

Doctrine Contained the Soviets in the Middle East (New York, 1990), p. 106.10. Ferenc A. Vali, Bridge across the Bosphorus: The Foreign Policy of Turkey (Baltimore and

London, 1971), pp. 199-200.11. Biilent Ali Riza, 'Turkish Participation in Middle East Defence Projects and Its Impact on

Turco-Arab Relations, May 1950-June 1953' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, St. Antony'sCollege, University of Oxford, 1982), p. 16 ff.

12. FO371/112922/WK10I3/4 and 12.13. Department of State. Washington. Foreign Relations of the United States 1952-1954

[hereafter: FRUS], Vol.IX, Part 1, p.147.14. Ibid., p.391. See also McGhee, Connection, pp.159-60; FO371/104187/E1033/22, British

Middle East Office weekly political summary by McCarthy, 4 June 1953.15. Devereux, Formulation, p.69; FO371/110788/V1073/54, Bowker to FO, 6 Oct. 1954.16. McGhee, Connection, p. 138.17. FO371/112921/WK1011/1, Helm to Eden, 1 Jan. 1954.18. Riza, Participation, p.226.19. S. M. Burke and Lawrence Ziring, Pakistan's Foreign Policy: An Historical Analysis,

second edition (Karachi, 1990), pp. 164-5.20. FO371/110787/V1073/7, Mackenzie to Eden, 24 Feb. 1954.21. FO371/112922/WK1013/5, Political Summary, Ankara by Scott-Fox, 11-24 Feb. 1954.22. Ismail Soysal, 'The 1955 Baghdad Pact', Studies on Turkish-Arab Relations (Istanbul),

Vol.5 (1990), p.51.23. Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', pp.53-7. See also FO371/110774/V1025/1, Bowker to Eden, 3

Aug. 1955.24. See details in Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy 1950-1975 (London,

1977), pp.52-3, 135, 138; Ergun Ozbudun (ed.), Perspectives on Democracy in Turkey(Ankara, 1988), p.76.

25. Frederick W. Axelgard, 'U.S. Policy Toward Iraq, 1946-1958' (unpublished Ph.D.dissertation, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, April 1988),p.121; Devereux, Formulation, p.144; FO371/104189/E1061/I, Mackenzie to Baker, 19Aug. 1953.

26. See full text of this treaty in Hurewitz, Diplomacy, II, pp.178-81.27. FO371/110986/VQ1011/1, Troutbeck to Eden, 11 Jan. 1954; FO371/115496/V1073/463,

Wright to Eden, 9 March 1955.28. FO371/110986/VQ1011/1, Troutbeck to Eden, II Jan. 1954.29. Donald James Decker, 'U.S. Policy Regarding the Baghdad Pact' (unpublished Ph.D.

dissertation, the American University, 1975), pp.82, 127, 207.30. FO371/110994/VQ1022/1, FO minute by Falla, 15 Jan. 1954.31. FRUS 1952-1954, Vol.IX, Part 2, p.2375; FO371/1I0841/V1782/2, FO Research

Department memo, 6 April 1954.32. FO37I/110787/V 1073/20, Troutbeck to FO, 23 March 1954.

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33. Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', pp.52-3.34. Axelgard,'U.S. Policy', p.151.35. FRUS 1952-1954, Vol.IX, Part 2, p.2384.36. FO371/U0995/VQ1023/5, Troutbeck to Allen, 28 April 1954; FO371/10787/V1073/41,

Troutbeck to Eden, 10 May 1954; FO371/110988/VQ1015/7, Commonwealth RelationsOffice (CRO) outward telegram, 11 May 1954.

37. Axelgard, U.S. Policy, p.145; FO371/110787/V1073/40, Scott Fox to Falla, 10 May 1954.38. FO371/110787/V1073/47, Bowker to Eden, 18 June 1954.39. Ibid., 745, FO minute by Brewis, 12 July 1954.40. FO371/110788/V1073/51, Aide-memoire by Pakistani Cabinet Secretary, 11-12 June

1954. Menderes was not alone in Turkey to claim that Turkey was the first and mostimportant line of defence against the Soviet Union. This view was widely shared by manyothers. On 8 Jan. 1954, during a particularly tense moment in Turkish-Egyptian relations,the Turkish daily Vatan wrote: 'Even today, if there were not a strong Turkey in front ofSuez, a Soviet puppet would have been sitting in General Nagib's place. Egypt'sindependence is preserved through Turkish honour and self-respect', quoted in Bedi N.Sehsuvaroglu, Hekim Bir Siyasimizin Portresi: Btiyuketci Dr. A. Hulusi Fuad Tugay [ThePortrait of One of Our Wise Politicians: Ambassador Dr. A. Hulusi Fuad Tugay] (Istanbul,1972), p.203.

41. FO371/110788/V1073/49, Bowker to FO, 15 July 1955.42. Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder and London, 1985), p.115.43. FO371/110787/V1073/11, Troutbeck to Eden, 10 March 1954; FO371/110791/V1076/34,

Troutbeck to Shuckburgh, 10 Sept. 1954.44. Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', p.54; FO371/110787/V1073/35, Hooper to Allen, 14 April 1954;

ibid., -/37.45. FO371/110990/VQ1015/55, Hooper to FO, 5 Aug. 1954.46. See details in Marr, Iraq, p.l 15; FO371/115475/VQ1011/1, Hooper to Eden, 30 Dec. 1954.47. Abdul-Amir Hadi al-'Akam, Ta'rikh hizb al-istiqlal al-'iraqi 1946-1958 [The History of

the Iraqi Independence Party] (Baghdad, 1980), p.78; George Grassmuck, 'The ElectoralProcess in Iraq, 1952-1958', Middle East Journal, Vol.14, No.4 (Autumn 1960),pp.409-12; FO371/110990/VQ1015/61-62 and 74.

48. See details in FO371/111051 and FO371/115803.49. FO371/110788/V 1073/52, Shuckburgh to Hooper, 20 July 1954.50. FO371/110788/V1073/69, Troutbeck to Falla, 27 Oct. 1954; FO371/110791/V1076/16, 26

and 44; FO371/110991/VQ1015/83, Troutbeck to Eden, 11 Sep.1954.51. FO371/110788/V1073/52, Shuckburgh to Hooper, 20 July 1954;

FO371/110791/V1073/69, Troutbeck to Falla, 27 Oct. 1954; FO371/110787/V1073/39,Troutbeck to Allen, 27 April 1954.

52. FO371/110788/V 1073/52, Shuckburgh to Hooper, 20 July 1954.53. Jalal, 'Baghdad Pact', pp.430-31.54. FO371/110788/V1073/56, CRO outward telegram [n.d].55. Devereux, Formulation, p. 166.56. FO371/110996/VQ10316/2,HoopertoFalla,28July 1954.57. FO371/110791/V1076/16, Troutbeck to Shuckburgh, 2 Sept.1954.58. FO371/110996/VQ10316/3, Stevenson to FO, 10 Aug. 1954.59. FO371/110788/V 1073/56, CRO outward telegram [n.d.]. For Nun previously advocating a

very similar scheme, see FO371/104236/E1197/1, Troutbeck to FO, 16 Feb. 1953.60. FO371/110791/V1076/1, Shuckburgh to Kirkpatrick, 24 Aug. 1954; ibid., -/3, Hooper to

FO, 20 Aug. 1954; FO371/110791/V1076/7, Troutbeck to FO, 1 Sept.1954.61. FRUS 1952-1954, Vol.IX, Part 1, pp.545-6.62. Muhammad Fadil Al-Jamali, review of 'Iraq under General Nun', Middle East Forum

(Beirut), Vol.XL, No.7 (October 1964), p. 17.63. Marr, Iraq, p. 117.64. FO371/110791/V1076/22, Stevenson to FO, 16 Sept.1954.65. FO371/110788/V1073/56, CRO outward telegram [n.d.].66. Ibid., -/88, Murray to FO, 17 Dec. 1954.

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67. FO371/11O791/V1O76/36, Falla to Troutbeck, 24 Sept.1954.68. FO371/110788/V1073/57, Falla to Southern Department, FO, 2 Oct. 1954.69. FRUS 1952-1954, Vol.IX, Part 2, p.2390.70. See also Muhammad Fadil al-Jamali, Dhikrayat wa 'ibar: karithat Filastin wa-alharuhafi

al-waqi' al- 'arabi [Memoirs and Lessons: The Catastrophe of Palestine and Its Impact onthe Arab Reality], second edition (Beirut, 1965), p.l 14.

71. FO371/U0791/V1076/43, FO to Baghdad, 6 Oct. 1954.72-. FRUS 1952-1954, Vol.IX, Part 1, p.549.73. John W. Young (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Churchill's Peacetime Administration

1951-1955 (Leicester, 1988), pp.170-1.74. FO371/110769/V1015/3, Bowker to Shuckburgh, 27 Aug. 1954.75. FO371/112922/WK1013/20, Political Summary, Ankara by Bowker, 26 Aug.-ll

Sept.1954. King Talal of Jordan had abdicated in 1952, after having been pronouncedmentally unfit to reign. He stayed in a mental asylum in Istanbul until his death in 1976.

76. FRUS 1952-1954, Vol.IX, Part 1, p.551; FO371/110791/V1076/20, HM Consul-General,Istanbul to FO, 14 Sept.1954. The first source ascribes the original proposal to this effectto Abdul-Ilah; the second, to Menderes.

77. Decker, U.S. Policy, p.84.78. Axelgard, U.S. Policy, p.152.79. FO371/110788/V1073/63, Bowker to FO, 21 Oct. 1954.80. Ibid., -/69, Troutbeck to Falla, 27 Oct. 1954.81. Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', pp.58-61; FO371/11O788/V1O73/63, Bowker to FO, 21 Oct.

1954;.82. FO371/110788/V1073/67, Troutbeck to FO, 21 Oct. 1954; ibid., -/69, Troutbeck to Falla,

27 Oct. 1954.83. FO371/110783/V1056/34, Bowker to Eden, 11 Dec. 1954.84. FO371/110791/V1037/27, Bowker to Eden, 14 Sept.1954; FO371/110783/V1056/23,

Bowker to Ward, 16 Nov. 1954.85. FO371/110788/V1073/80, Scott Fox to FO, 27 Nov. 1954.86. Ibid., -/93, Bowker to FO, 31 Dec. 1954.87. FO371/115484/V1073/3, Beeley to Falla, 30 Dec. 1954; ibid., -/4, Hooper to FO, 5 Jan.

1955.88. Marr, Iraq, p.l 17.89. FO371/115486/V1073/90, Hooper to Eden, 18 Jan. 1955.90. Ibid., -/90, Hooper to Eden, 18 Jan. 1955; FO371/11590/V1073/219, Bowker to Eden, 8

Feb. 1955. See full Arabic translation of Menderes's speech in the Iraqi Chamber ofDeputies in Major Shakir (Sabir), Tarikh al-sadaqah bayn Turkiyya wa-l-'Iraq [TheHistory of Turkish-Iraqi Friendship] (Baghdad, 1955), pp. 179-80.

91. FO371/115484/V1073/6, HoopertoFO, 10 Jan. 1955.92. Ibid., -/5'A', Bowker to Falla, 7 Jan. 1955.93. Amikam Nachmani, Israel, Turkey and Greece: Uneasy Relations in the East

Mediterranean (London, 1987), pp.72-3.94. FO371/115484/V1073/11, HoopertoFO, 12 Jan. 1955.95. FO371/115748/VQ1015/2, Hooper to Eden, 12 Jan. 1955.96. See full text of communique in Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', p.63; FO371/115487/V1073/137.97. See full Arabic text of Iraqi communique in Shakir, Tarikh al-sadaqah, pp. 176-7; its full

English translation, in FO371/115485/V1073/43, Hooper to FO, 19 Jan. 1955.98. Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres. Commission de Publication des Documents

Diplomatiques Francais. Documents Diplomatiques Francois, 1955, Tome I: lerjanvier-30juin (Paris, 1987), pp.90-91; FO371/115484/V1073/13, Hooper to FO, 13 Jan.1955;FO371/115486/V1073/67, FO minute by Shuckburgh, 17 Jan. 1955.

99. See details in Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', p.63; FO371/115484/V1073/13, Hooper to FO, 13Jan. 1955; ibid., -/32, FO to UK embassy, Washington, 18 Jan. 1955;FO371/115486/V1073/62, Bowker to FO, 18 Jan. 1955

100. Gordon H. Torrey, Syrian Politics and the Military 1945-1958 (Columbus, 1964), p.273;Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics 1945-1958

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(London, 1986), p.21I; FO371/11O788/V1073/84, Murray to FO, 7 Dec. 1954; ibid., -/90,Hooper to Falla, 21 Dec. 1954; FO371/115483/V1072/1, Murray to Eden, 28 Dec. 1954;FO371/115484/V1O73/32, FO minute by Kirkpatrick, 19 Jan. 1955.

101. FO371/115486/V1073/74, Stevenson to FO, 22 Ian. 1955.102. Miles Copeland, The Game of Nations: The Amoralily of Power Politics (London, 1969),

p. 177.103. FO371/115489/V1073/187, Stewart to Bromley, 1 Feb. 1955.104. FO371/115750/VQ10344/1, Stevenson to FO, 11 Jan. 1955.105. FO371/115489/V1073/187, Stewart to Bromley, 1 Feb. 1955.106. Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951-56, selected for publication by John

Charmley (New York and London, 1986), p.249.107. FO371/115484/V1073/25, Stevenson toFO, 17 Jan. 1955.108. FO371/115487/V1073/102, Wright to FO, 26 Jan. 1955.109. Ibid., -/108, Stevenson to FO, 27 Jan. 1955.110. Ibid', -/125, Stevenson to FO, 30 Jan. 1955.111. Ibid.,-/143, Hooper to Eden, 8 Feb. 1955.112. FO371/115488/V1073/152, Wright to FO, 3 Feb. 1955.113. Ibid., -/166, HM Consul General, Istanbul to FO, 6 Feb. 1955.114. FO371/115490/V1073/219, Bowker to Eden, 8 Feb. 1955.115. FO371/115488/V1073/171, Wright to FO, 5 Feb. 1955.116. Ibid., -/182, Wright to FO, 8 Feb. 1955.117. The reference characters Nl, N2 and N3, standing for Nuri's first, second and third drafts,

have been assigned by the author to make the text easier to follow. The same applies to M1,standing for Menderes's first draft, as well as to LI and L2, standing of the first and seconddrafts of the exchanged letters.

118. See full text of draft (Nl) in FO371/115488/V1073/165G, Wright to FO, 6 Feb. 1955.119. FO371/115495/VI073/396, Wright to FO, 5 March 1955.120. FO371/115487/V1073/104, Bowker to FO, 27 Jan. 1955.121. FO371/115488/V1073/166, HM Consul-General, Istanbul to FO, 6 Feb. 1955.122. See full text of amended draft (Ml) in FO371/115488/V1073/167, HM Consul-General,

Istanbul to FO, 6 Feb. 1955.123. FO371/115489/V1073/209, FO to Ankara, 8 Feb. 1955; FO371/115488/V1073/166,

Makins to FO, 9 Feb. 1955.124. FO371/115489/V1073/209, FO to Ankara, 8 Feb. 1955.125. Ibid., -/182, Wright to FO, 8 Feb. 1955; ibid., -/192, Bowker to FO, 9 Feb. 1955.126. Ibid., -/192, Bowker to FO, 9 Feb. 1955.127. Ibid., -/198, Wright to FO, 10 Feb. 1955.128. Ibid., -/194, Wright to FO, 9 Feb. 1955.129. The only significant difference in the alternative text from draft (N2) was the breaking

down of Article 1 of (N2) into two separate Articles 1 and 2 as follows:Article 1.The High Contracting Parties will cooperate for their defence and security in accordance with

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter and will support each other against any aggressionin violation of the United Nations Charter.

In order to ensure the realization and effect application of cooperation provided for in Article 1above, the competent authorities of the High Contracting Parties will determine themeasures to be taken as soon as the present treaty enters into force. These measures willbecome operative as soon as they have been approved by the Governments of the HighContracting Parties and may form the subject of special agreements.

130. FO371/115489/V1073/2U, Bowker to FO, lOFeb. 1955.131. Ibid., -/194, Wright to FO, 9 Feb. 1955.132. Ibid., -1211, Bowker to FO, lOFeb. 1955. Article 1 of the said treaty stated: 'Chacune des

Hautes Parties Contractantes s'engage a respecter leur integrite territoriale et leur frontierescommunes telles qu'elles sont definies et tracees dans le Traite conclu en 1926'.

133. FO371/115490/V 1073/220, Wright to FO, 11 Feb. 1955.

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134. FO371/115489/V1O73/196, Makins to FO, 9 Feb. 1955.135. FO371/115490/V1073/223G.FO to Ankara, 11 Feb. 1955.136. Compare ibid., the draft telegram first prepared in the FO with the final text actually sent

to the respective embassies.137. FO371/115490/V1073/223, BowkertoFO, 16 Feb. 1955.138. FO371/115491/V1073/245 and 247, Wright to FO, 16 Feb. 1955.139. Ibid., -/250, Wright to FO, 16 Feb. 1955.140. FO371/115492/V1073/273, BowkertoFO, 18Feb. 1955.141. FO371/115490/V1073/234, Stevenson to FO, 14 Feb. 1955; FO371/115492/V1073/267,

FO minute by Rose, 15 Feb. 1955; ibid., -/269, FO to Baghdad, 17 Feb. 1955, etc.142. FO371/115492/V1073/273, BowkertoFO, 18 Feb. 1955.143. Ibid., -/276, Wright to FO, 18 Feb. 1955.144. Ibid., -/287, Bowker to FO, 20 Feb. 1955.145. FO371/115488/V1073/156, Nicholls to Eden, 1 Feb. 1955.146. FRUS 1955-1957, Vol.XII, p.9; FO371/115487/V1073/130, Bowker to Shuckburgh, 25

Jan. 1955.147. FO371/115489/V1073/180, Bowker to Shuckburgh, 1 Feb. 1955.148. FO371/115492/V1073/281,FO minute by Brewis, 19 Feb. 1955."149. FO371/115496/V1073/418, brief prepared by Levant Department, FO, 3 March 1955.150. FRUS 1955-1957, Vol.XII, p. 10.151. FO371/115493/V1073/326, FO minute by Powell, 22 Feb. 1955.152. FO371/115492/V1073/281, FO to Ankara, 19 Feb. 1955.153. Abubaker M. Saad, 'Iraq and Arab Politics: The Nuri as-Said Era, 1941-1958'

(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1987), p.409.154. FO371/115492/V 1073/287, Bowker to FO, 20 Feb. 1955.155. Ibid., -/282, Wright to FO and FO to Ankara, 20 Feb. 1955.156. Ibid., -/300, Bowker to FO, 22 Feb. 1955.157. FO371/115493/V1073/301, BowkertoFO, 22 Feb. 1955.158. FO371/115492/V 1073/300, Bowker to FO, 22 Feb. 1955.159. FO371/115493/V1073/314, Wright to FO, 23 Feb. 1955.160. Ibid., -/304, Bowker to FO, 22 Feb. 1955.161. Ibid., -/331 and 332, Wright to FO, 23 Feb. 1955.162. Ibid.,-/315 and 333.163. FO371/115496/V1073/424, Hooper to Rose, 1 March 1955.164. FO371/115493/V 1073/316, Wright to FO, 24 Feb. 1955.165. Ibid., -/334, Wright to FO, 25 Feb. 1955.166. See full text in Hurewitz, Diplomacy, II, pp.390-1; Noble Frankland (ed.), Documents on

International Affairs, 1955, pp.287-9.167. FO371/115494/V1073/342, BowkertoFO, 26 Feb. 1955.168. Soysal, 'Baghdad Pact', p.66; FO371/115495/V1073/389, Bowker to Eden, 1 March 1955.

Esenbel had also told the counsellor of the British embassy that in 'any case the exchangeof letters was of no significance, first because Turkey recognised the impossibility of theliteral application of the Resolutions, and secondly because Nuri Pasha, in insisting on theletters, had made it clear that he did not expect Turkey to take further action and onlyrequired them in order to reinforce his position with the other Arab countries'; see ibid.

169. Saad, Iraq and Arab Politics, p.410; FO371/115494/V1073/345, Wright to FO, 27 Feb.1955;FO371/115497/V1073/463, Wright to Eden, 1 March 1955.

170. FO371/115507/V1073/717, BowkertoFO, 16 April 1955.171. Majid Khadduri, Independent 'Iraq 1932-1958: A Study in 'Iraqi Politics, second edition

(London, New York and Karachi, 1960), pp.349-50; James Morris, The Hashemite Kings(London, 1959), p.185; John C. Campbell, Defense of the Middle East: Problems ofAmerican Policy, revised edition (New York, 1960) p.58; Seale, Struggle, p.228; Devereux,Formulation, pp. 166-7.

172. FO371/115748/VQ1015/8, Wright to Macmillan, 7 June 1955. See text of main instrumentand the two subsidiary memoranda in Hurewitz, Diplomacy, II, pp.391-5.

173. Quoted in Elizabeth Monroe, Britain's Moment in the Middle East 1914-1956 (London,

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1965), p.184. See also Aptulahat Aksin, Tiirkiye'nin 1945 den Sonraki Dis PolitikaGelismeleri: Orta Dogu Meseleleri [The Developments in Turkey's Foreign Policy after1945: Problems of the Middle East] (Istanbul, 1959), p.102; Mamduh al-Rusan, Al-'Iraqwa qadaya al-sharq al-'arabi al-qawmiyyah 1941-1958 [Iraq and the National Causes ofthe Arab East] (Beirut, 1979), p.306.

174. Mudhakkarat Khalid al-'Azm [The Memoirs of Khalid al-'Azm], Vol.11, first edition(Beirut, 1972), p.395-9.

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