Aqaba became subject of a dispute. Faisal consistently maintained that the Sykes-Picot Blue Zone was part of the area promised to Hussein in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence. On 15 September 1919, Lloyd George and Clemenceau reached an agreement whereby British forces were to be withdrawn starting on 1 November. As a result, OETA East became a sole Arab administration on 26 November 1919. Meantime, Faisal was called to London, arriving there on 18 September and it was ultimately explained to him that he would have to make the best of it that he could with the French. While in London Faisal was given copies of all of the McMahon-Hussein correspondence that until then he had not been fully apprised of; according to his biographer, Faisal believed that he had been misled by his father and by Abdullah in this regard. Faisal arrived in Paris on October 20. Faisal and Clemenceau finally agreed on 6 January 1920, that France would permit limited independence of Syria with Faisal as king provided Syria remained under French tutelage, Syria to accept the French mandate and control of Syria's foreign policy. The political scene in Damascus was dominated by three organizations, al-Nadi al-'Arabi (the Arab Club with strong Palestinian connections), Hizbal-Istiqlal al-'Arabi (the Arab Independence Party connected to al-Fatat) and Al-'Ahd (an Iraqi-run officers association). After returning to Damascus on 16 January, Faisal then proved unable to convince these supporters of the merits of his arrangement with Clemenceau and the Syrian National Congress on 8 March 1920 declared Faisal King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria over the whole of the OETA East area, and nominally over the rest of the historical region of Syria (which included Palestine). Jointly with the French, Lord Curzon disapproved and asked Faisal to take up his case with the Supreme Council. Curzon met with the French ambassador on 30 March and noted that the £100K monthly Anglo-French subsidy to Faisal had not been paid since the end of 1919 and should not be paid if Faisal pursues an "unfriendly and independent policy". In April 1920 the San Remo conference handed the French a Mandate for Syria; Faisal was invited to attend but did not do so, Nuri al-Said, Rustam Haidar and Najib Shuqayr attended informally, arriving nearly a week late and remained isolated from the main decisions of the conference. On 11 May, Millerand (who had replaced Clemenceau on 20