backs to the future, 1929–33King Nadir Shah’s bilateral relationsNadir Shah’s relations with Turkey were distant and strained as the new
government sought to distance itself from Tarzi’s Turcophile policies. All
Turkish military trainers and advisers were sent home, despite complaints
from Ankara that this was in breach of the Turco-Afghan Treaty. It was not
until the summer of 1930 that Turkey finally agreed to restore diplomatic
relations with Afghanistan. Iran-Afghan relations remained cordial but the
dispute over the Sistan frontier and riparian rights to the waters of the lower
Helmand rumbled on. The biggest concern for the Afghan government,
however, was the fear that Iranian nationalism might lead to rebellions
among the Persianate population of Herat and western Afghanistan as
well as among Afghanistan’s Shi‘a minority. France continued to dominate
the cultural section and Nadir Shah, who regarded France as the intel-
lectual and scientific centre of Europe, sent his son and heir Muhammad
Zahir Shah to Paris for his education. Other Muhammadzais followed
suit, though some preferred Germany or the usa. Italy played a minor
role in Afghanistan after 1930, but the government did permit the Vatican
to establish a Catholic chaplaincy inside the Italian embassy to serve the
foreign community’s spiritual needs.
By 1929 Germany was Afghanistan’s third most important foreign
stakeholder and the country’s largest creditor, for the government had
loaned ’Aman Allah Khan 8 million marks. The new administration had
no means of paying this loan back within the agreed six-year term, so
the government successfully negotiated a two-year extension. Initially,
however, Afghan-German relations were complicated by a dispute over the
Deutsch-Afghanische Company (dacom), the company that had been set
up to handle Germany’s trade and aid to Afghanistan. dacom had run into
financial difficulties after ’Aman Allah Khan’s officials insisted the value
of German exports had to equal Germany’s imports of Afghan goods,
an impracticable demand given Afghanistan had little of value in terms
of export that dacom could sell on. After the fall of ’Aman Allah Khan,
Habib Allah Kalakani had cancelled the dacom contract, imprisoned its
Afghan staff and seized all its stock, so when Nadir Shah came to power the
German government refused to normalize relations with Afghanistan until
the issue of compensation was settled. Nadir Shah retaliated by refusing
to renew the contracts of German technicians, but eventually both sides
realized they were cutting off their noses to spite their faces and in 1931
diplomatic relations were restored. By this time dacom had gone bankrupt.