767.68119/416: Telegram
The Minister in Switzerland (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:10 p.m.]
14. Apparently Sunday night when Bompard and Montagna met Ismet they reached an agreement on changes in the Turkish statement on capitulations. It was a purely informal agreement, however, and the British have not given their approval. The two concessions made are as follows:
- 1.
- The Turks agreed to Montagna’s proposal that judicial advisers to the Ministry of Justice should be chosen from a list of suitable jurists, nationals of states with which Turkey had not been at war. The list should be prepared by the Permanent Court at The Hague. The Turks had proposed that the judicial advisers should be appointed from neutral states.
- 2.
- The Turks also agreed to accept, subject to minor technical changes, the Allied proposal that no domiciliary visits or arrests [Page 969] should be made without the approval of the warrant or writ by one of the foreign jurists provided for in the preceding paragraph. The Turks had previously rejected this proposal.
On the Sunday night immediately following the rupture, Ambassador Child, Admiral Bristol, and myself had a conversation with Ismet in which he at last agreed to an additional concession with respect to the judicial regime. This was that if the Allies would suppress the objectionable economic clauses the Turks would agree to admit judicial advisers to the courts of first instance at Adana and Samsoun, as well as at Constantinople and Smyrna. At his request, however, we pledged our word not to reveal to the Allies this concession until we had first obtained theirs. Hoping on the basis of these new developments to retain Curzon, we hurried to the railway station but found that his train had already left.