791.003/128: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Persia (Philip)
[Paraphrase]
Washington, May 29,
1928—4 p.m.
46. Referring to your 59, May 28, 3 p.m.
- (1)
- Regarding personal status and family law jurisdiction, you should emphatically remind Teimourtache of his unqualified assurances that his Government had no intention whatever of imposing penalties or inferior treatment of any sort upon American citizens because of lapse of treaty. (See your telegram 28, March 20, noon, generally, and its paragraph (5), particularly.) The United States Government will not ask for its citizens in Persia special favors, but cannot agree to their being put in a less advantageous position than the nationals of any other country. Negotiations with Persia must proceed upon this fundamental principle, and it should be made perfectly clear by you to Teimourtache that any failure on Persia’s part to recognize this principle would place the United States Government under the regrettable necessity to consider appropriate action for an entirely new situation.
- (2)
- The Department’s view of personal status and family law jurisdiction will be brought to the attention of the Persian Minister in Washington, but it is not anticipated, in view of his complete lack of familiarity with the negotiations hitherto proceeding in Teheran, that this move will gain much.
- (3)
- There is no objection to using, in the note on personal status and family law jurisdiction, the term “non-Moslem” to qualify American nationals.
- (4)
- Is it correct for the Department to understand from your telegram that jurisdiction over personal status and family law of Persian nationals in Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy is to be exercised by Persian tribunals which are either established in these countries or outside them?
Kellogg