767.68119/9–2545
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs (Allen)
In a conversation with the Turkish Ambassador today, I informed him of the Department’s telegram to Ankara (No. 939, dated September 20, 1945), in which the American Embassy at Ankara was instructed to inform the Turkish Government that the United States did not intend to bring the Straits question before the Council of Foreign Ministers in London and that we would communicate with the Turkish Government in the near future our views regarding the revision of the Montreux Convention. I told the Ambassador that the Potsdam Agreement provided that the Governments of the U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R., which were in agreement that the Convention should be revised to meet modern conditions, would each discuss the matter separately with Turkey.
The Turkish Ambassador said that this was a somewhat different version of the Potsdam Agreement than that given the Turkish Government by the British Embassy in Ankara. The Turks understood from the British that President Truman had undertaken at Potsdam [Page 1250] to speak for the three Allies (U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R.) in discussing the matter with Turkey. The Ambassador said that his Government would be disappointed to learn that the British version was not entirely correct, since the Turkish Government would much prefer to discuss the question with the United States on behalf of the other Allies rather than to discuss it with each separately.
I said that I thought I could explain how the misunderstanding had arisen. Immediately following the oral discussion of the Straits question in Potsdam, Mr. Eden had telegraphed to the British Ambassador in Ankara instructing him to inform the Turkish Government that the United States had agreed to discuss the Straits question with Turkey. I thought the British were undoubtedly convinced that Mr. Truman had agreed to take the initiative in the matter, although there was little basis for any impression that the United States would speak for the other Allies. When the Agreement was reduced to writing some days later, it provided clearly that each of the Allies would discuss the matter with Turkey, and there was no indication as to which would speak first.
The Turkish Ambassador said that as regards internationalization, his Government felt that it understood well the American point of view since our position with regard to waterways had always been to favor the most liberal use of such waterways. He recalled that we had taken this attitude during the Lausanne Conference of 1923,63 and he understood that we were merely adhering to our well established position.
- For documentation concerning the attitude of the United States on the freedom of the Straits at the Lausanne Conference, see Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. ii, entries in index under sub-heading “Straits, freedom of”, p. 1269.↩