No. 234
Editorial Note
Replies to circular telegram 211, October 27, requesting comments on telegram 441 from Ankara, are in Department of State [Page 556] file 780.5. There seems to be no direct response from Ankara, the Embassy rather concentrating on forwarding information supplementary to telegram 441. Ankara offered no explanation as to Menderes’ action in not signing at that time.
Replies from Damascus and Beirut, especially Damascus, emphasized that Nuri Said was probably less interested in regional defense than in union between Iraq and Syria under the Hashemite royal house. Israel already disliked the northern tier concept and viewed with great apprehension the Menderes plan for expansion of the regional defense grouping to include Arab states. The British Foreign Office perceived no essential incompatibility between a regional grouping based on the “northern tier” concept and one based on the Arab League Collective Security Pact. The Iranian reaction, transmitted in telegram 1016 from Tehran, November 3, is printed infra. (Telegrams 181 from Damascus, October 30; 383 from Tel Aviv, October 31; 432 from Beirut, November 1; and despatch 1230 from London, October 29)