SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[C169/42/7]

Sir Austen Chamberlain to Mr. Dodd (Sofia).

(No.21.)

Sir, Foreign Office, January16, 1928.

I HAVE received your dispatch No. 3 of the 5th January last, and have noted with some surprise the efforts of M. Bouroff to justify the non possumusattitude of the Bulgarian Government with regard to the terrorist campaign in Southern Serbia while complaining of the action of the Yugoslav Government in closing the frontier between the two countries. The Bulgarian Minister called at this Office on the 10th January and requested, on behalf of the Bulgarian Government, that His Majesty's Government should support the representations which the Bulgarian Minister at Belgrade has been instructed to address to the Yugoslav Government with a view to inducing the latter to reopen the frontier. M. Hadji Mischeff repeated very much the same arguments as those used by M. Bouroff to you, and stated that the Bulgarian Government contemplates the closure of the Bulgarian frontier against Yugoslavia as a measure of retaliation.

• 2. M. Hadji Mischeff is being informed in reply that the policy of His Majesty's Government was to encourage the Yugoslav and Bulgarian Governments to cooperate with a view to putting an end to the terrorist campaign which was poisoning the relations between the two countries, and that it was with this in view that, after the incidents of last autumn, I had urged moderation on the Yugoslav Government and at the same time had advised the Bulgarian Government to take definite measures against the Macedonian Organisation. It is to be hoped that the present demarcheat Belgrade might be the occasion of a fresh exchange of views between the two Governments with a view to dealing with the Macedonian problem, but it is essential in that case that the request for the opening of the frontier should be accompanied by definite assurances as to the efficacy of the measures which the Bulgarian Government were taking in order to prevent Macedonian terrorists from crossing the frontier with impunity.