Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, The Near East and Africa, Volume IV

867.24/619a

The Department of State to the Turkish Embassy

Aide-Mémoire

As the Government of Turkey is aware, on February 23, 1942 this Government concluded a lend-lease agreement with the United Kingdom⁷⁵ pursuant to the provisions of the Lend-Lease Act of the United States of March 11, 1941, and has since concluded similar agreements with China, the Soviet Union, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Norway and Yugoslavia. Australia and New Zealand also have accepted the principles of the agreement with the United Kingdom. These agreements seek to state as accurately as is now possible the basis on which aid under the Act is furnished, and to assure the greatest possible degree of cooperation in the task of postwar economic reconstruction, through agreed action open to participation by all other like-minded nations.

It now seems to this Government that a generally similar agreement should be entered into between the United States and Turkey. Drafts of such an agreement and of a proposed accompanying exchange of notes are submitted herewith for the consideration of the Turkish Government.⁷⁶

In the examination of these documents the following points may be noted:

1. Articles I, III, IV, V, VI, and VII of the proposed agreement are identical with the corresponding articles in the other agreements referred to. The Preamble, and Article II, differ from those agreements in order to take account of the fact that Turkey is nonbelligerent.

2. The master agreement is intended to apply to all lend-lease aid to Turkey, past, present, or future, and whether originally arranged directly, or by retransfer through the British Government. Upon signature of the agreement the Lend-Lease Administration will transfer from British account to Turkish account upon its books, the record of past deliveries of lend-lease aid to Turkey through the British authorities, and will request the British authorities to change their books accordingly.

3. The accompanying exchange of notes is intended to state as accurately as now possible the financial obligation to be incurred by the Turkish Government in connection with lend-lease aid. It is hoped that the arrangement suggested provides sufficient flexibility to meet the contingencies that may arise.

4. With reference to the conversations contemplated by Article VII of the proposed agreement, looking forward to agreed action “directed to the expansion, by appropriate international and domestic measures, of production, employment, and the exchange and consumption of goods” and to the attainment of the other objectives stated in the Article, the Government of the United States would be prepared to enter into informal and exploratory discussions at the convenience of the Turkish Government.

A copy of the lend-lease agreement with the United Kingdom referred to in the first paragraph, and a copy of the Joint Declaration made on August 14, 1941,⁷⁷ referred to in Article VII of the draft agreement submitted herewith, are enclosed for convenient reference.

Washington , March 8, 1943.

75. Signed at Washington February 23, 1942; for text, see Department of State Executive Agreement Series 241, or 56 Stat. (pt. 2) 1433.
76. None printed.
77. Joint Declaration by President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill, August 14, 1941, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 367.