Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei

Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei

Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei ( Persian محمد ساعد مراغه‌ای; *  1883 in Maragheh ; † 1973 ) was an Iranian politician and Prime Minister of Iran .

Life

Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei was born in Maragheh in 1883. He studied at the University of Lausanne .

Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei first became Prime Minister on March 28, 1944 during World War II . Iran was occupied by British and Soviet troops in August 1941 as part of the Anglo-Soviet invasion . In October 1942, US troops marched into Iran to ensure the supply of Soviet troops with military equipment via the Persian Corridor .

Like its previous governments, the Maraghei government had to contend with food shortages and inflation caused by supplies to the occupation forces. In order to solve the budget problems, the Iranian government tried to award production concessions to American oil companies. This led to conflicts with Stalin, who in turn sought an oil production license for the Soviet Union in northern Iran. The demands of the Soviets for an oil production concession were supported by the communist Tudeh party, which had entered the newly elected parliament with nine members in the last elections. This alliance between Stalin's demands and the Tudeh Party deputies alarmed the Iranian government. Prime Minister Maraghei then stated that all negotiations on oil concessions would be suspended from the Iranian side until the end of the war. The result was mass demonstrations organized by the Tudeh Party in October 1944 against Prime Minister Maraghei, who was accused of preferring the Americans to the Soviets on the question of oil concessions. Prime Minister Maraghei saw no alternative but to resign.

Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei was to take over the post of Prime Minister again in November 1948 after the resignation of Abdolhossein Hazhir . The question of oil concessions was still not resolved. Prime Minister Hazhir had been mandated by parliament to begin negotiations on a new concession for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company , which was to replace the concession from 1933. The parliament wanted to get a higher share of the revenues from the oil production for Iran. Hazhir drew up a 25-point memorandum, but could no longer negotiate with the AIOC himself, as he had to resign as prime minister due to the ongoing demonstrations against him. Ayatollah Kaschani had insulted Hazhir as an agent of British colonialism and a spy and called for violent demonstrations against the Prime Minister. Finance Minister Abbasqoli Golshaiyan of Prime Minister Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei's cabinet then conducted the first negotiations with the AIOC on the basis of the paper drawn up by Hazhir.

Finance Minister Golshaiyan reported to Parliament on his negotiations with the AIOC. He had called for a 50% stake in the AIOC's profits, a new agreement regarding the duration of the concession and a review of the concession terms every 15 years. Prime Minister Sa'ed Maraghei decided that Golshaiyan should negotiate a contract with the AIOC. In the end, an agreement was reached in July 1949 and an agreement supplementing the previous concession was signed by the representative of AIOC Gass and Golshaiyan. Prime Minister Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei sent this agreement to parliament for a vote. Fierce discussions broke out and Mohammad Sa'ed Maraghei was accused of betraying the rights of the Iranian people. The agreement was not ratified by Parliament. Instead, some members of parliament proposed nationalizing the AIOC's oil facilities. The first steps on the way to the Abadan crisis had been taken.

On February 4, 1949, there was a momentous assassination attempt on Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . The assassin Fakhr Arai had fired several shots at the Shah, which injured him but were not fatal. As a result of the attack, the communist Tudeh party was banned, although it could not be proven that the attacker belonged to the left or the Islamist scene. Three weeks after the attack on the Shah, Parliament approved the establishment of a second chamber, the Senate. This second chamber had already been provided for in the 1906 constitution but was never constituted. The decision to establish the Senate was linked to an amendment to Article 48 of the Constitution, which granted the Shah the right to dissolve Parliament at any time.

On April 26, 1949, Prime Minister Maraghei turned to the US Ambassador and asked for US financial support for the urgently needed infrastructure investments in agriculture, road construction and airport construction. On May 27, 1949, Secretary of State Ala asked the US government for financial aid, more precisely a $ 500 million loan, but the US initially refused. On July 21, 1949, the United States National Security Council passed a memorandum that it was in the interests of the United States to strengthen Iran's relations with the West. The Mutual Assistance Program (MAP) has provided $ 27 million in financial assistance to Iran, Korea and the Philippines.

On January 26, 1950, Secretary of State Ala made another attempt to finally get substantial financial support from the United States to help build the country. This time, too, they met with rejection, so that Prime Minister Maraghei resigned in March 1950, who he saw no opportunity to implement the development program he had planned.

Honors

• 1958: Grand Cross of the Papal Order of Pius

literature

• Alireza Avsati: Iran in the last 3 Centuries . Intishārāt-i Pā'kitāb, Tehran 2003, ISBN 964-93406-6-1 (vol. 1), ISBN 964-93406-5-3 (vol. 2) (Persian).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kristen Blake: The US-Soviet confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962. University Press of America, 2009, p. 19.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and time of the Shah. University of California Press, 2009, p. 118.
3. ↑ Gholam Reza Afkhami: The life and time of the Shah. University of California Press, 2009, p. 117.
4. ^ Kristen Blake: The US-Soviet confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962. University Press of America, 2009, p. 52.
5. ^ Kristen Blake: The US-Soviet confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962. University Press of America, 2009, p. 53.
6. ↑ AAS 51 (1959), n.5, p. 286.