890D.01/5–2945: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Caffery) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 29—1 p.m.]
3031. Information Ministry has issued following communiqué:
“The French Government is following with the greatest attention the incidents which have developed in the last few weeks in certain [Page 1112] cities of Syria and even of the Lebanon, the authors of which have taken as a pretext certain French troop movements on an extremely small scale which were solely connected with relief and deployment.
“It remarks that these movements took place at the same time as more extended military measures in the same region and without doubt for the same reasons undertaken by the British authorities without having previously consulted with the French authorities entrusted with the maintenance of order.
“The French Government regrets that the Syrian and Lebanese Governments have felt it necessary to take this occasion to refuse the negotiations which General Beynet, Delegate General and Plenipotentiary of France, had been instructed to undertake with them for the purpose of arriving at a general settlement of the questions interesting France and Syria on the one hand and France and the Lebanon on the other.
“It is difficult to believe that the Syrian and Lebanese Governments can have any real fears as to the intentions of France regarding their independence when it was France which proclaimed this independence, when France today offers to settle the conditions which should definitely guarantee this independence as far as France is concerned and when France has just given open proof of its intentions by arranging that the United Nations should invite Syria and the Lebanon to take part in the Conference of San Francisco.
“There is no reason to believe that this situation, the real motives of which as well as the efforts made to develop it appear very artificial, can be misinterpreted by international opinion in spite of the tendencious character of certain statements.”
This evening’s semi-official Le Monde in addition to the above communiqué carries a Reuter despatch from London of an interview with Beynet reading in part as follows:
“We wished to negotiate on a friendly basis but the Levant States have refused to negotiate. We have given up all control over the administration except that of the army and the telegraphs which is required by the war. There was no unfriendliness in the French offers and it was not a question of an ultimatum. I am certain that France will not refuse to discuss an agreement put forward by the Levant States which would protect the interests of those States and of France but up to now we have not received acceptable proposals. It is no longer up to us to take the first step. It is not a question of pride.”
Le Monde also prints the British Foreign Office statement of May 27.61
- Printed in the London Times, May 28, p. 3.↩