124.90H/74½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Alling)
The Ambassador6 said that we would recall that several days ago, following a conversation with Mr. Murray, he had taken up with the Foreign Office at Ankara the question of American representation at Kabul. The Turkish Foreign Minister had discussed the problem with the Afghan Ambassador and had urged upon the Afghan Government that they agree to receive an American Chargé d’Affaires. The Ambassador stated that he was now in receipt of a telegram from Ankara stating that the Afghan Ambassador had now received a reply from his Government and had conveyed it to the Turkish Foreign Minister. The substance of the reply was that the Afghan Government would welcome American diplomatic representation in Kabul and had indeed been urging for some years that such representation be established. As proof of the Afghan Government’s desire to receive a diplomatic representative it had set aside one of the most suitable houses in the Afghan capital for the use of an American representative. The Afghan Government could not, however, receive any American representative below the grade of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.
[Page 50]I told the Ambassador that we were extremely grateful to him and to his Government for the effort they had made to settle this problem. I added that so far as I could see we should probably have to go ahead with the idea of an Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Kabul, although this raised certain administrative problems of which he was aware. The Ambassador said that if he or his Government could be of any further service to us in the matter both were at our disposal.
- The Turkish Ambassador.↩