The Anglo-Persian Agreement involved

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

and

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, and centered on the drilling rights of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The "agreement" was issued by British

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

Lord Curzon George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), styled Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and then Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman ...

, to the Persian government in August 1919. It was never ratified by the

Majlis ( ar, المجلس, pl. ') is an Arabic term meaning "sitting room", used to describe various types of special gatherings among common interest groups of administrative, social or religious nature in countries with linguistic or cultural conne ...

(Iranian parliament). After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the new

Soviet government The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...

abandoned the former

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

sphere of influence In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal al ...

in the five northern provinces of Iran, branding the concept as "

Tsarist Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states ...

Imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

". Britain was the remaining power in the region and Curzon hoped to make Iran not a protectorate but a client state of Britain and of no other great power. The document gave a guarantee of British access to all Iranian oil fields. In return the British would: *Supply munitions and equipment for a British-trained army *Provide a 2 million sterling loan for "necessary reforms" *Revise the

Customs tariff A tariff is a tax imposed by the government of a country or by a supranational union on imports or exports of goods. Besides being a source of revenue for the government, import duties can also be a form of regulation of foreign trade and polic ...

*Survey and build railroads. The document was criticized by foreign observers as

hegemonic Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over other city-states. ...

, especially in the United States, which also had designs on accessing Iranian oil fields. Eventually, the Anglo-Persian Agreement was formally denounced by the Majlis on 22 June 1921.

External links

* * Haghshenas, Seyyed Ali, review of Treaty of 1919, between Iran & Britain. (owjnews Agency) 1919 in Iran Treaties of the United Kingdom (1801–1922) Interwar-period treaties Treaties concluded in 1919 Treaties of the Qajar dynasty Anglo-Persian Oil Company Iran–United Kingdom relations Bilateral treaties of the United Kingdom Bilateral treaties of Iran Neocolonialism {{Iran-hist-stub

See also

External links