Anglo-Persian Agreement

The Anglo-Persian Agreement was an agreement British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon put to the Persian government in August 1919, offering a British-trained army, munitions and equipment, a 2 million pound loan for reforms, revised customs tariffs and railway surveying and construction, in exchange for guaranteed British access to the oil fields of Iran for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Foreign observers, including the United States, which was also seeking access to Iranian oil, criticized the agreement as excessively controlling, and the Majlis of Iran never ratified it, formally denouncing it on June 22, 1921. It reflected an attempt by Britain to establish itself as the dominant power in Iran after the Soviet Union renounced the earlier imperial claims of Russia there.