Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey signed a non-aggression pact in Tehran in 1937. Its provisions on sovereignty and cross-border organisations mattered for Kurdish politics, but the treaty, its stated purposes and its implementation need separate examination.

League of Nations treaty page showing Articles 7 to 10 of the Saadabad Pact and the names of its four foreign ministers
League of Nations Treaty Series, volume 190 (1938), page 27: English translation of Articles 7–10 and the signatories’ names. A facsimile of the published treaty, not a photograph of the signing. League of Nations · Treaty Series 190 (1938), p. 27 · Wikimedia Commons scan · Historical public-domain treaty record.

Four states and two dates

The pact was signed at Saadabad Palace in Tehran on 8 July 1937 by the foreign ministers of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey: Faiz Mohammad Khan, Enayatollah Samiy, Naji al-Asil and Tevfik Rüştü Aras. The treaty-series record dates the deposit of ratifications to 25 June 1938. [1] Afghanistan was a participant in its own right, not a state that had partitioned Kurdish-inhabited territory. Syria was not a signatory. The four-state membership is important when assessing claims that every clause concerned Kurdish movements alone.

What non-aggression meant

Articles 1–4 addressed non-interference, common frontiers, consultation and aggression. Article 4 listed invasion and attack among prohibited acts, with specified exceptions. [1] These commitments did not establish an automatic collective-defence organisation. An April 1939 diplomatic report discussed whether the pact might be turned into a mutual-defence instrument amid concern about Italy and Germany. [4] A proposal to change its function is evidence of what officials were considering then, not proof that the original agreement already contained that later arrangement.

Article 7 and Kurdish cross-border activity

Article 7 required each state to prevent groups within its own borders from undermining another signatory’s institutions, order, security or constitutional system. Its wording concerned armed bands, associations and organisations, without naming Kurds. [1] The political implications were nevertheless substantial. In her 2002 St Andrews dissertation, Miwa Saito, citing Nader Entessar, describes the pact as obstructing Kurdish fighters’ cross-border movement and neighbouring refuges. [2] That interpretation explains why the pact belongs in Kurdish history. It does not establish that every crossing ceased or that every Kurdish community experienced an identical policy. The obligation’s wording and evidence of particular enforcement remain different kinds of evidence.

More than one motive

In an August 1937 statement transmitted by the US legation, Iran presented the pact as evidence of peaceful relations and settlement of frontier disputes; it also claimed the initiative for itself. [3] This is a government’s diplomatic presentation, rather than an independent account of every motive. Mustafa Serdar Palabıyık’s research abstract argues that explanations confined to either internal or external threats are insufficient and proposes considering both. [5] These perspectives allow Kurdish security concerns, relations between neighbouring governments and wider international anxieties to be studied together. An account that simply labels the pact an exclusively anti-Kurdish project loses that context.

A documented invocation in 1941

A US report from Baghdad on 13 August 1941 records the British ambassador urging Iraq to invoke Saadabad in representations to Iran about German visitors and Iraqi political refugees allegedly using Iranian territory for intrigue against Iraq. The report also records unconfirmed coup rumours. [6] This is a concrete example of the pact being invoked over cross-border political activity outside a specifically Kurdish case. It documents the request and the British assessment, not a verified coup or proof that Iran completed every action requested. Its value is in showing how the non-subversion framework could enter diplomacy.

Duration, rights and historical limits

Article 10 set an initial five-year term with successive five-year renewal unless denounced on six months’ notice; the text did not simply expire automatically after five years. [1] Respect for existing states and restrictions on opposition networks could work against movements seeking a different political order. That is the central tension for Kurdish readers: intergovernmental peace did not itself provide Kurdish autonomy or language rights. Claims that the pact caused a particular massacre, permanently removed all sanctuaries or directly authorised every later security operation require additional event-specific evidence. The 1955 Baghdad Pact and later agreements should therefore be examined in their own texts and circumstances, rather than treated as unchanged extensions of a single 1937 clause.

Sources and further reading

  1. League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 190 (1938), no. 4402, pp. 21–27: official French treaty and English translation, ten articles and ratification note.
  2. Miwa Saito, Nation-building and Conflict Resolution: The Kurds in Iraq and Turkey (PhD, St Andrews, 2002), p. 121: Kurdish border movements and the pact, citing Entessar (1992), p. 54.
  3. FRUS 1937, vol. I, document 820: Engert dispatch, 25 August, enclosing Iran’s statement of 23 August 1937.
  4. FRUS 1939, vol. II, document 352: 12 April report of discussion about possible mutual defence.
  5. Mustafa Serdar Palabıyık, Sadabad Pact: An Analysis Based on Alliance Theories, Ortadoğu Etütleri 2.1 (2010; online record 2016), pp. 147–179; public abstract consulted.
  6. FRUS 1941, vol. III, document 373: Knabenshue telegram, 13 August 1941, on invoking the pact over activities in Iran.