890D.01/6–145: Telegram

The Egyptian Prime Minister ( Nokrashi ) to the Acting Secretary of State 92

Excellency: I feel it my duty to bring to Your Excellency’s attention the painful impression which the recent events in Syria and the Lebanon have caused through all Arab countries. Far from being less tense the situation is becoming more critical. The French troops have shelled the cities and clashes have occurred between the people and the French and they are now in actual fighting. In appealing to the Great Powers we consider that we address ourselves to the states which have the authority and the duty to intervene to put an end to the use of force in settling disputes between nations. We consider also that while the United Nations are at San Francisco to establish the basis of international peace and security the use of force is liable to diminish the faith of the world in a satisfactory solution of the international postwar problems. At San Francisco the Great Powers among which France, Syria and the Lebanon are sitting will not refuse to give an effective and efficient assistance to stop fighting and bloodshed. We regret the bloody events of these last days the more so that the Allies have promised to give all their attention to the fact that no problem should be settled other than by peaceful means. Contrary to the hope entertained by the world we are witnessing at the present painful time a manifestation of an armed action against unarmed peoples. The solution of the problem of the Levant must be based on equality and justice. On the morrow of the war by which all the world has suffered and in which the Allies have pooled all their moral resources no one can imagine that the lesson which everybody ought to have learned is already forgotten. I am convinced that the Great Powers as well as the Arab peoples are interested in a prompt solution. There is no means to come to such a solution without the immediate stopping of fighting, the prevention of bloodshed and the reasonable intervention of the Great Powers to bring France to a more sound conception of this grave situation so that the gulf that lay between France and all Arab countries should not be widened. Those countries would be profoundly grieved and disappointed if such a beneficent intervention was not to be made. Unless all the United Nations stand [Page 1128] by the principles of the Atlantic Charter and by the basis on which universal peace will be established in the near future the world cannot but doubt that such a peace be obtained and that justice may ever triumph. In appealing to Your Excellency I am fully convinced that the great country you represent will protect the rights of peace by defending the just cause of those two Arab States.

M. F. Nokrashi

[On May 31, the Regent of Iraq, Abdul Hah, his adviser, Nuri As-Said, and the Iraqi Minister, Ali Jawdat, called on Acting Secretary of State Grew. Mr. Grew’s memorandum of their conversation stated: “There was some talk about the situation in the Levant, and I told the Regent of the position and steps which we had taken in connection with the hostilities now occurring there. I gave copies to the Iraq Minister and to Nuri Pasha, for the Regent, of our note of May 28 to the Provisional French Government.” (890G.001/5–1845) For information regarding the visit to the United States of the Regent of Iraq, see bracketed note, page 586.]

  1. Transmitted under covering note 608 by the Egyptian Minister (Hassan) to the Acting Secretary of State on June 1, 1945.