890D.01/9–2244

The Appointed Minister to Syria and Lebanon ( Wadsworth ) to the Secretary of State

No. 525

Sir: Supplementing my telegram no. 201 of today’s date, 6 p.m.,47 I have the honor to transmit herewith the original of the letter referred to therein as having been addressed to President Roosevelt by the President of Syria.

This letter is dated September 19, 1944, and is written in the English language. Copy is enclosed for the Department’s convenience.

I venture to add, as of personal knowledge, that great care has gone into the preparation of this letter, the President himself having studied and worked over its every paragraph with his Premier and Foreign Minister. Consequently its statement and discussion of the burning issues of this pre-war-end period, as they see them, are of special interest.

Similar appeals, I was informed by the Foreign Minister’s secretary who today handed me this letter, have been addressed by President Quwatly to King George and Marshal Stalin with appropriate modification of opening paragraph.

Respectfully yours,

George Wadsworth
[Enclosure]

The President of the Syrian Republic ( Kuwatly ) to President Roosevelt

Mr. President: Your diplomatic representative, who has our entire confidence and whose aim is to assure the mutual interests of your [Page 788] great country and our own, and to maintain peace and justice in this part of the world, has informed us of the disposition of the United States to recognize the Syrian Republic unconditionally and to exchange diplomatic representatives with it. The Syrian Government has expressed its great satisfaction and high appreciation for this friendly gesture and I am pleased to add thereto my own. This gesture is moreover a confirmation of the political traditions of the United States and of its idealism, which have always found in this country a deep and sympathetic repercussion since the time when your great predecessor, President Wilson, proclaimed to the world the principles of justice for all nations, large and small, and since an American commission48 came to Syria in 1919 to carry out a plebiscite which would indicate the desires of the Syrian people. Moreover, in the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms49 which you yourself have proclaimed you have given a new impetus to the traditional American policy.

In this connection permit me to describe the political state of our country. Syria has been liberated during this war from the chains of secret agreements which it was made to endure in the name of the Mandate, and has struggled ceaselessly until its rights and national identity have been realized. The situation in Syria is, however, from the internal as well as external viewpoint clear and normal. From the internal viewpoint Syria has during the past year established its constitutional and democratic institutions based on the will of the people. As to the external viewpoint the great Powers, such as the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and all the Arab States and others as well, have recognized the sovereignty and independence of the Syrian Republic to which they have also accredited their diplomatic representatives. Even the representatives of France concluded on December 22, 1943, an agreement with the Syrian Government recognizing the independence and sovereignty of Syria and turning over to it all the powers which France had hitherto exercised in the name of Syria. The Syrian Government, for its part, continues to administer all the interests of the country and to exercise completely its attributions with all the responsibilities resulting therefrom. Only the question of the Army still remains unsettled, for, in spite of the fact that negotiations for turning it over to the Syrian Government [Page 789] have already been completed, the French have not yet done so. We insist however that this be done.

In view of the foregoing, you will be surprised to learn, Mr. President, that the British Minister has made a verbal communication to the Syrian Government, the tenor of which is to invite this Government to enter into negotiations with the representatives of France for the conclusion of a treaty between France and Syria. These negotiations would have as their purpose, he states, the normalization of the situation in Syria on a diplomatic basis. The French Delegate General has made the same request adding that with this treaty France should obtain a privileged position in Syria and that he made this request as a result of a recent exchange of views between M. Massigli50 and Mr. Eden in London.

We can see no reason however why Syria should enter into negotiations with the French Government, since such negotiations could have no useful result, in view of the fact that we do not wish to grant France any advantage from either the cultural, material, political or military viewpoint. We desire to treat with all Nations, especially the great Powers, on a footing of complete equality. This attitude on our part does not signify a hostile feeling toward any State whatsoever but does signify a legitimate attachment to the defense of our rights and interests.

Any other attitude would be in contradiction with the principles of the common law and the basic rules proclaimed in the course of this war concerning the law of nations by the Atlantic Charter, the United Nations’ Declaration, and other documents and statements, and would above all be in contradiction with the rights and the interests of the Syrian people and the interests of peace in the Middle East.

The Syrian Government believes it to be its duty to avoid any contractual policy with France alone, because such a policy would signify the renunciation of everything that has so far been accomplished and would moreover signify the abandonment of the rights of the Syrian people, who have based such great hopes on the United Nations and the great principles for which they have fought in the course of the present war.

Therefore, the Syrian Government, placing its entire confidence in the great statesmen of the democratic countries, especially in the United States and its eminent President, declines to make any agreement according a privileged position to any State whatsoever. It furthermore desires to have a common policy with all the Arab States in order to safeguard peace in the Middle East, the great importance of which this war has demonstrated.

[Page 790]

The high principles of the freedom and liberty of nations are being put to the test in this country as well as everywhere else in the world. We trust that the world will not again be deceived by secret and private agreements made before the end of the war. We also trust that the United States will not again remain isolated from the affairs of the old world but will rather help to uphold right and justice everywhere and will aid the weak nations who do not have the means of defending themselves against the strong, for peace cannot be placed on a permanent basis if colonial and expansionist ambitions are not everywhere eliminated.

Will you please accept [etc.]

Chucri Al-Kuwatli
  1. Not printed.
  2. The American Section of the International Commission on Mandates in Turkey (the King–Crane Commission) sent by the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 to the Middle East “to acquaint itself … with the sentiments of the people of those regions with regard to the future administration of their affairs”. For correspondence relating to the Commission and the report of the American Section, see Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xii, pp. 745 ff.
  3. Contained in the President’s Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, January 6, 1941; Congressional Record, vol. 87, pt. 1, pp. 44–47.
  4. René Massigli, appointed French Ambassador to the United Kingdom, September 11, 1944.