Secretary of State James F. Byrnes today announced that the State Department considers that “it would be premature for this Government to take any decision at the present time with respect to the question of its recognition of Transjordan as an independent state.”
The announcement was made a few hours before Byrnes left for Paris to attend the conference of foreign ministers. It emphasized, at the same time, that Britain’s recent granting of independence to Transjordan does not violate any existing Anglo-American treaties, or “deprive the United States of any rights or interests which the United States may have with respect to Transjordan.”
Byrnes’ views with regard to the question of Transjordan were set forth in a letter to Senator Francis J. Myers of Pennsylvania, who had written to the State Department protesting the granting of independence to Transjordan and inquiring about the American attitude. The text of the Byroes letter, which was made public today by the State Department, reviews the background of the Transjordan affair and points out that Article 25 of the Palestine Mandate distinguishes between the lands west and those east of the Jordan River.
Secretary Byrnes, in his letter, also cites the memorandum approved by the Council of the League of Nations in September 1922, proposing exemption of Transjordan from all clauses of the Palestine Mandate dealing with the Jewish National Home and holy places, and providing for a separate administration in Transjordan. Quoting Article 7, which stipulates against modification of the Mandate without United States assent, he declares that “it has been the consistent position of the Government of the United States that Article 7 does not empower this Government to prevent the modification of the terms of the Mandate.
“This article, however, renders it possible for this Government to decline to recognize the validity of the application to American rights and interests, as defined by the convention, of any modification of the Mandate unless such modification has been assented to by the Government of the United States,” Byrness stressed.
On the other hand, the Secretary’s letter points out that the U. S. Government, by signing the 1924 convention with Great Britain, acquiesced in the League’s decision for exemption of Transjordan from all the clauses of the Palestine Mandate dealing with the Jewish National Home and the holy places and in the decision that Transjordan “should enjoy any independent position.
“There has been, therefore, a differentiation in the treatment of Transjordan and Palestine since 1923,” Byrnes declared, “formally approved by the Council of the League of Nations in September 1922 and tacitly approved by the Government of the United States when it signed and ratified the Convention of December 3, 1924.”
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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.
