867.24/323: Telegram

The Ambassador in Turkey (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State

568. Reference my 499, May 29, 2 p.m. The Embassy received this morning the Turkish Government’s formal written acceptance of the new procedure proposed with regard to the furnishing of supplies to Turkey. The note reads as follows:

“In reply to the Embassy’s oral communication of April 24, 1942, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the honor to inform the Embassy of the United States of America that in conformity with the principles discussed and agreed upon at the meeting held recently in the Ministry attended by the British Ambassador and the Ambassador of the United States of America, principles which formed the subject of the proposals made in the oral communication referred to above, there has just been created in the Ministry under the chairmanship of Mr. Bedri Tahri Saman, Director General of the Department of Economic and Commercial Affairs, a ‘Central Turkish Bureau of Orders’ which is charged with collaborating with the British-American Coordinating Committee in respect to all requests presented by the Turkish Government relative to American and English supplies for the needs of the State.

It will be the function of this Central Bureau to coordinate in accordance with the procedure of work proposed in the second paragraph of the Embassy’s oral communication of April 24, 1942, procedure which has been approved and settled in the course of the meeting referred to above—the aforementioned requests with its counterpart the British-American Coordinating Committee.

In this connection the Ministry of Foreign Affairs desires to make it clear that the special bureau under the chairmanship of Mr. Faik Akdur, Director General of the Third Department, will continue to exercise its functions and that it will be its duty and competence to receive all other requests, suggestions duty [sic] proposals relating to questions which have a political, military or administrative character specially those which do not fall within the sphere of the Central Bureau of Orders.”

The British Ambassador and I have agreed to hold the first formal meeting of the British-American Coordinating Committee within the next day or two.

Steinhardt