BRITAIN NO LONGER A WORLD POWER TO ACT ALONE: THE NATIONALISATION OF THE ANGLO-IRANIAN OIL COMPANY’S CRISIS: AN EXAMPLE BRITAIN SHOULD HAVE LEARNT IN THE SUEZ CANAL CRISIS OF 1956
The owners of the tanker, the Compania de Navigacion Teresita firm, controlled by an Italian with the name of Rizzi, were at once approached by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which persuaded them to transfer to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company the charter held by the Bubenberg Company. As the tanker was navigating the south coast of Arabia, Royal Air Force planes circled round the vessel, until eventually they managed to divert the tanker to Aden, where it was under British jurisdiction. On 10th December 1952, ultimately the case came up for hearing before the Aden Supreme Court. Sir Hartley Shawcross, the former Attorney-General, had been briefed by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company to conduct the case. On 9th January 1953, the Court ruled that the oil belonged to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and was to be surrendered immediately.
Apart from the oil blockade, and direct action against ‘freelance’ ventures, of which an example has just been given, the British Government as early as June 1951 started to impose economic sanctions on Iran.³
The export of sugar, steel, iron, non-ferrous metals, alloys, railway trucks, and materials became forbidden:
We should prevent the export to Persia of sugar, and other commodities which clearly result in a direct or indirect loss of dollars to the United Kingdom.4
Any vessel which carried such goods to Iranian ports would be diverted, by radio, even if contracts had already been made, without taking any notice of Iranian officials’ complaints.
On the other hand, at the same period when Britain started to impose economic sanctions on Iran in 1951, the oil cartel was drawing up plans to isolate Iranian oil. This was while negotiations, which the studies in the previous chapters showed, between Britain, Iran and the United States were going on.
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- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Just before the UK was considering taking military action, which was discussed in Chapter Three.
- PRO, London, T236/3664, Treasury Records, Cabinet Persia (Official) Committee, Exports to Persia, Note by the Board of Trade, Secret, 21st, July 1952, p. 1.
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