The signing of the convention between the Iraq Petroleum Company and the Palestine Government regulating the transit of the mineral oils of the Iraq Petroleum Company through Palestine territory, with Faifa or some near-by point in the Acre Bay are a as the terminus (reported in yesterday’s J.T.A. Bulletin) does not yet definitely settle the question whether the terminus of the oil pipe-line is to be at Haifa or in Palestine at all, the J.T.A. is given to understand to-day in competent quarters.
The negotiations between the Iraq Petroleum Company and the Governments of France and the French mandated territories of Syria and Lebanon have not yet been completed and it is still possible that an agreement will be reached to lay the oil pipe-line to Alexandretta, Tripolis or some other Syrian port, as well as to Paifa, carrying out the much-discussed bifurcation project.
The convention signed between the Iraq Petroleum Company and the Palestine Government, it is further pointed out, is still contingent upon the conclusion of an agreement between the Company and the Government of Iraq, and apart from that, it is suggested, it may eventually result that the Company may decide not to avail itself of the rights so and facilities which it has obtained under the convention with the Palestine Government, and build the oil pipe-line only to the Syrian port regarding the present convention with the Palestine Government as purely an enabling agreement.
It is unlikely, however, the J.T.A. is given to understand, that the Palestine Government should have entered into a convention which is binding only upon itself, leaving the other party, the Iraq Petroleum Company, free not to avail itself, if it chooses, of the rights and facilities secured by it in the convention. In any case, it is pointed out, the possibility of the oil pipe-line being built to a Syrian port as well as to Haifa is not disposed of by the agreement.
The present convention, the J.T.A. further understands, is in the nature of a tripartite agreement, between the Iraq Petroleum Company, the Palestine Government, and the Transjordan Government, through whose territory, too, the Iraq oil pipe-line would have to pass on its way to the terminus in the Acre Bay area. The convention on behalf of the Transjordan Government, it is understood in this connection, was not signed by Sir John Chancellor, as the High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan, but separately by the ### Prime Minister of Transjordan on behalf of the Transjordan Government.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
