Contesting foreign policy: Disagreement between the Ottoman ministry of foreign affairs and the ministry of war on the Shatt al-Arab dispute with Iran, 1912-13

The Shatt al-Arab question has been the subject of several studies, most of which concentrate on the internationalization of the subject. However, few, if any, works have analyzed how this territorial dispute was perceived within Ottoman bureaucratic circles. When the Ottoman Empire reinstated a constitutional monarchy in 1908, the Ottoman-Iranian border dispute regarding the Shatt al-Arab had to be readdressed, with international players involved in the process. Considering the role of foreign factors, this study focuses on the contesting interests of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War on the Shatt al-Arab question (1912-13) and considers how these interests shaped foreign policy in the process of negotiating a resolution.