treaty was a source of dispute. Eventually, Rtishchev resolved the
matter by leaving the Talesh border to be decided later by a bina-
tional commission and giving the geographical markers of the rest of
the border. In essence, Iran ceded Talesh and all of the khanates
north of the Aras and the Kura, except Yerevan and Nakhjavan, to
Russia. Since the border coincided with the status quo ad presentem,
Russia acknowledged Iranian control of Moqri, a Qarabaghi border
district that the Russians had abandoned as unhealthful and virtually
inaccessible from the rest of Qarabagh. Moreover, Iran recognized
Russia's sovereignty over all of the rest of the Caucasus from the
west Georgian principalities to the high mountains, thus denying any
Ottoman claim to those lands. There were also provisions aimed at
improving Russo-Iranian trade and one that guaranteed the voluntary
repatriation of those who had been captured or migrated from one
side of the border to the other. The treaty included a stipulation that
only Russian naval vessels might sail the Caspian, but there had been
no Iranian naval activity there at any point during the war.^29
Rtishchev and Mirza Abu'1-Hasan signed the treaty on October 24,
- According to the treaty, both sovereigns had to ratify it within
three months. Fath 'Ali signed the treaty at the end of the year. The
following summer, Ouseley traveled home via Russia, where he ex-
pected to persuade the tsar to make some territorial concessions. He
was received warmly in St. Petersburg but did not achieve his goal.
For the next twenty years, he waited to be rewarded with a peerage
that never was granted. The Treaty of Golestan, which he helped to
bring about, satisfied neither signatory. The war was over, but the
underlying grievances remained unresolved.
144 France and Britain in Iran