740.00/989: Telegram
The Minister Resident in Iraq (Knabenshue) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 19—2:16 p.m.]
20. I presented to the Prime Minister the text of the President’s message to Hitler and Mussolini suggesting that he might like to make some comment for transmission to my Government. I have today received from him the following:
“The Iraqi Government has followed with increasing anxiety the course of recent events in Europe, culminating in the termination of the independence of the small Moslem state of Albania. The constant threat of war and the crushing burden of expenditure on armaments have gravely prejudiced what it conceives to be its principal duty, to work for the progress and happiness of all classes of its people.
The policy of Iraq is to live not only in peace but on terms of the closest collaboration with all countries especially its neighbors. It therefore welcomes the magnanimous initiative of the President of the United States and is ready to cooperate without reserve for the realization of his aims.”
The Prime Minister subsequently informed me verbally that the text of the above comment has been transmitted to the other members of the Saadabad pact.21
- Signed at Teheran, July 8, 1937, by Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey; League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. cxc, p. 21.↩