767.68119/7–945
No. 705
The British Minister (Balfour) to the Director of
Near Eastern and African Affairs (Henderson)
secret
Washington, 9th July,
1945.
My Dear Henderson, In answer to your enquiry
to-day, I send you the following telegraphic record which we
received from London of what took place at a plenary session at
Yalta on the 10th February.1
[Page 1049] You will see that in the
earlier part of the record there are one or two points which arrived
here corrupt. The general tenour of Stalin’s remarks is, however, clear enough.
Yours ever
[Enclosure]
secret
Text of a Message Sent by Foreign Office to
Ankara Dated 27th February
At plenary session February 10th Stalin raised the question of the Japanese and
the Montreux Convention. He claimed it was now out of date,
referring to the fact that Japan plays a more prominent part under it than
the U. S. S. R. and that it was closely connected with the
League of Nations which was no longer a reality. Turkey could close the Straits
not only in the event of war but if she considered the situation
to be threatened. The Convention had been signed when Soviet
relations with Great Britain were not perfect but this was now
changed. Stalin was sure
that there would be no objections on [garble] whatever. He did
not wish to prejudge any future [garble] but he thought the
Soviet interests should be taken into account without infringing
the legitimate interests of Turkey. He suggested revision of the Montreux
Convention should be discussed at the first meeting of the
Foreign Secretaries who should then report to their governments,
and this was agreed.
The Prime Minister said that when Stalin had raised the subject in Moscow in
October last he had said that we viewed with sympathy the
proposal to revise the Convention. We had asked the Soviet
Government to give us a note of their proposals but they had not
hitherto done so. He thought Stalin’s proposed course of action was wise and
we agreed that present position, under which one exit from the
Black Sea could be closed, was not satisfactory. We had promised
the Turkish Government to keep them informed if any such project
was under consideration and I had therefore informed the Turkish
Ambassador in London in very general terms of what had passed in
Moscow. The Prime Minister thought however that consideration
should be given to the desirability of accompanying any proposal
for changes in the regime of the Straits to meet Russian needs
and wishes by appropriate assurances to Turkey regarding maintenance of
her independence and integrity. Stalin said that he had nothing to hide and
readily agreed that such assurances should be given.
