Treaty of Lausanne problems and protests

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Understanding Treaty of Lausanne

The Treaty of Lausanne is an international peace agreement signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1923. The Treaty was signed for a period of hundred years i.e. up till 2023.

It was signed between the Allied powers; Britain, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the then Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was represented by Ismet Inonu as a delegate of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Turkish delegation led by Ismet Inonu, who was the country's foreign minister in 1923, signed the Treaty of Lausanne alongside his counterparts in Lausanne in Switzerland on July 24, 1923.

The treaty led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey. The Treaty of Lausanne contains 143 articles and was distributed over 17 documents. Its main contents are as under:

It abolished the Treaty of Sevres and its unfair clauses

Demarcated and recognized the new borders

It formally recognized the Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal and the abolition of the Caliphate

The Treaty delineated the borders of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey and formally conceded all Turkish claims on Dodecanese Islands (Article 15), Cyprus (Article 20), Egypt and Sudan (Article 17), Iraq and Syria (Article 3)

The Dodecanese is a group of islands in the Aegean Sea, off the southwestern coast of Turkey in southeastern Greece

The Fate of Mosul was left to be determined through the League of Nations. Mosul is a major city in present-day northern Iraq and serves as the capital of the Nineveh Governorate

The separate Kurdish territory, which was a part of the treaty of Severs was abandoned

Armenian people were split between the Soviet Union and Turkey

Turkey had to renounce its sovereignty over Cyprus, Libya, Egypt, and Levant cities located in Syria e.g. Adana and Gaziantep

Syria and Lebanon fell under French occupation. Moreover, Egypt, Sudan, and Iraq became officially part of the British occupation

Palestine came under British authorities (before being handed over to the newborn state of Israel)

As a punitive action, in order to crush Turkey, the Turkish straits between the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea were declared open to all shipping and unrestricted civilian passage through Turkish straits

The purpose was to limit its resources from the International passage

More restrictions were clamped on Turkey as it was prevented from drilling for oil and gas.

Background

After defeating Ottoman Empire in World War I, Britain, France, Italy, and other Allies decided to constrict one of the mightiest and longest-lasting dynasties in world history; the Ottoman Empire.

The Islamic Superpower ruled large areas of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa for more than 600 years. Though initially, the Ottoman Empire, already in its decline, stayed neutral.

However, in 1914 to strengthen its weakening army, the then Ottoman Empire signed a pact with Germany. German interest at that time was securing safe passage into the neighboring British colonies.

The Ottoman Empire fought the war on the side of Germany, Austria, and Hungary, known as the Central powers. World War I ended with Ottoman Empire being wholly vanquished.

The alliance with Germany cost it thousands of Ottoman lives, dealing a death blow to the already weak empire. This disastrous defeat ended with the signing of the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, in Sevres, France.

Treaty of Sevres

The Treaty of Sevres marked the beginning of the partition of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty stipulated the renunciation of most territories and their cession to Allied Powers i.e., France, the UK, Greece, and Italy.

Furthermore, Sèvres internationalized Istanbul and the Bosphorus. The Treaty changed the whole outlook of Antalya and the then Ottoman Empire was left with a small chunk when Greece, Italy, and France occupied their assigned regions.

However, it lasted just a year. Refusing such crushing terms, forces of the Turkish Nationalist Movement fought a war of liberation and expelled the French troops from South East Antalya in the Battle of Sakarya in September 1921.

The war was led by Mustafa Kemal, the leader of the Turkish National Movement. He also defeated the army of Greece in the Greek-Turkish war with a stirred-up spirit of nationalism, to fight the Allies in Izmir and other regions of Turkish territory.

Mustafa Kemal founded the Republic of modern Turkey as a secular state. Turkey recovered Eastern Thrace, several Aegean islands, a strip along the Syrian border, the Smyrna district, and the internationalized Zone of the Straits; Bosphorus and Dardanelles.

However, these would remain demilitarized. Thrace is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, split between Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. Smyrna, the present-day Izmir, was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia.

Turkey recovered full sovereign rights over all its territory and outside the Zone of the Straits, no limitation was imposed on the Turkish military establishment.

These developments compelled the Allies to come to the negotiating table, resulting in the inception of the Treaty of Lausanne and present-day Turkey.

Consequently, Turkey renounced all claims on its former territories outside new boundaries and guaranteed the rights of its minorities. An agreement between Greece and Turkey was also signed for the exchange of minorities.

What happens after the Treaty of Lausanne expires?

Presently, a persistent question plaguing the minds of the Western and Middle Eastern powers and analysts is what will happen after the Treaty of Lausanne expires in July 2023.

With the expiration of the 100 years treaty in 2023, Turkey will be able to drill for oil, establishing a new channel connecting the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara for collecting the fees from passing ships.

Moreover, it will be able to spearhead gas exploration in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, especially after the discovery of oil in Mosul which remains the most significant area for Turkey.

Erdogan reclaimed the Greek Islands in the Aegean after the expiration of the Treaty, which was handed over to Greecaims to grab will be free to take charge of the rich and underground resources in Northern Iraq and begin exploration.

Likewise, it will be able to take back control of Libya and Cyprus and maintain a presence in the Mediterranean region.

Prevalent political situation in the region

Turkey has never been able to erase those painful memories of when it was forced to sign the humiliating treaty under duress. In fact, the myth of re-establishing the old Ottoman Empire never faded away.

After the rise of Erdogan on the Turkish political horizon and the support of various Islamic movements, it may be highlighted that the changes in the geopolitical scenario post-Treaty of Lausanne would depend on the use of Turkish military capabilities in the region.

This has been manifested by Turkish military concentrations on the borders of Iraq and Syria and its involvement in the Red Sea through an agreement on the Sudanese island of Sawaken.

Suakin or Sawakin is a port city in northeastern Sudan. It is located on the west coast of the Red Sea. It was previously the region’s chief port. Presently, it is secondary to Port Sudan, roughly 50 kilometers north.

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. It is connected to the ocean in the south, via the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el Mandeb strait.

https://thediplomaticinsight.com/unders ... -lausanne/

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Kurds must unify

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky on Monday gave an exclusive interview to Kurdistan 24 in which he touched upon many outstanding issues concerning the Middle East and the Kurdistan Region

Regarding Iraq’s issues, Chomsky said that Iraq was not established by Britain out of the interests of the people who live in Iraq, but it was established so that its northern oil fields would fall under British rather than Turkish control.

“They established the principality of Kuwait so that Iraq would not have free access to the sea and would be under British control,” Chomsky stated.

Concerning the Kurdish cause, he highlighted that the Kurds face extremely difficult problems.

“They’re separated into many countries… that make the situation extremely harsh and difficult that it cannot be faced at all unless they first unify and overcome the internal divisions which prevent them from having a unified approach to these massive problems,” he reiterated.

Chomsky pointed out that the Kurds' problems differ based upon the different countries they inhabit.

“Problems of Kurds in Iraq are different from those of the large majority of Kurds in Turkey under severe repression, again Rojava and Syria faces its own special problems, Iran also harsh repression in the Kurdish areas,” he said and noted that “Kurds must unify somehow to try to find ways of fending off these repressions and finding some base for a free and independent Kurdish community.”

Meanwhile, the linguist stressed that the Kurds of Iran are probably the most exposed to current repression in Iran, probably more than any other group.

https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/31 ... am-Chomsky

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Kurdish activist protest Lausanne

A Kurdish activist is walking from Washington DC to the United Nations headquarters in New York in an act of protest to mark the 100th anniversary of the Lausanne treaty that divided Kurdish lands

Kani Xulam, director of the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN), began his march in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday morning.

“I am leaving today, and my trip will last 24 days,” Xulam told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda. He plans to end his march on July 24, the anniversary of signing the treaty, in front of the UN headquarters in New York.

He hopes his march will raise awareness about the Kurdish issue and draw American support for the Kurdish people.

“A huge injustice and a huge mistake were committed against the Kurds a hundred years ago,” he said.

The Lausanne treaty was signed in 1923, in the aftermath of World War I, and divided the Kurdish homeland into the four countries that are modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey.

The treaty dashed Kurdish hopes of creating their own homeland out of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. One hundred years later, Kurds are one of the largest stateless nations and have suffered systemic persecution and discrimination.

Several American and Palestinian human rights activists joined Xulam at the Lincoln Memorial to show their support. Xulam expects he will be accompanied by friends on his journey and hopes to be welcomed by Americans as he walks more than 400 kilometres.

“Many people have expressed their support for this activity, some of them will accompany me for two or three days and some for a week. My aim is to win the support of the American people for the Kurdish issue,” Xulam said.

The AKIN website describes Xulam as a commentator on the history and politics of Kurdistan while advocating for the right of Kurdish people to self-determination.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/world/01072023

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Defend Kurdistan Initiative

100 years ago, on July 24, 1923, an international conference of imperialist states took place in Lausanne as a result of previously fought wars of distribution in the Middle East. At this conference, Kurdistan was divided among four nation-states through

The Defend Kurdistan Initiative called on everyone to attend the demonstration that will take place in Lausanne on 22 July.

In a statement, the Defend Kurdistan Initiative wrote: "100 years ago, on 24 July 1923, an international conference of imperialist states took place in Lausanne as a result of previously fought wars of distribution in the Middle East. At this conference, Kurdistan was divided among four nation-states through the so-called Lausanne Treaty. With this, the systematic policy of denial, assimilation, and cultural genocide against the Kurdish people was initiated, and Kurdistan was transformed into an international colony."

The statement continued: "After the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, a dark period began in Kurdistan. From 1925 to 1938, hundreds of thousands of Kurds were massacred and expelled in Northern Kurdistan, and a policy of starvation, torture, denial, and assimilation was established in Kurdistan. In Southern Kurdistan, the Treaty of Lausanne was followed in the 1980s by the Anfal genocide, with over a hundred thousand dead. In Halabja, the Kurdish equivalent of Guernica, the Iraqi Air Force perpetrated an attack with German poison gas, which caused at least 5000 deaths.

At least 7,000 people were injured, some of whom have suffered permanent health damage to this day. In Eastern Kurdistan, the brutal and Western-backed regime of the Shah of Persia and, in the 1980s, the new Islamist rulers perpetrated numerous massacres of leading figures of the Kurdish liberation struggle and the revolutionaries of Şîno, Mahabad, and Sine. The nationalist Ba'ath regime in Syria also attempted to eradicate the Kurdish presence in the north of the country, expatriated hundreds of thousands of Kurds in western Kurdistan, and pursued a systematic policy of Arabization of Kurdish settlement areas."

The statement added: "The consequences of the Treaty of Lausanne are still painfully felt by the people of Kurdistan today. The barbed wire and minefields that still separate the four parts of Kurdistan 100 years later and the torture chambers after the signing of the treaty are only the most obvious to mention. Until today, families are separated by fences and walls, Kurds are murdered trying to cross the borders, and entire towns are torn in two by arbitrarily drawn borders.

After 100 years of exploitation, massacres, and resistance, the Kurds are coming to Lausanne in Switzerland this year to make it clear once and for all: 'Even after 100 years, The Treaty of Lausanne is not accepted by the Kurds!' After 100 years, it is time to draw a final line and end the era of foreign rule and occupation. The Treaty of Lausanne is a treaty that was dictated over the heads of the peoples of the region and has no legitimacy."

The Defend Kurdistan Initiative said that "as friends of the Kurds, we will stand next to them on the streets of Lausanne. Our struggles are similar. Therefore, we, as the Defend Kurdistan Initiative, call for internationalist participation in the historic demonstration in Lausanne on July 22, 2023. We invite all our solidarity structures and internationalist friends to join the big internationalist block

."
Shamefully, after 100 years of suppression and slaughter, Kurds in Northern Kurdistan do NOT have a political party to support Kurdish Independence. Worse than that the so-called Kurdish party named the HDP actually tells Kurds they do not need Independence and the HDP support Ataturk (the Turkish leader responsible for many genocidal attacks on Kurdish

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Calls for Kurdish national unity

In addition to a central march, the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) is organizing a two-day conference in Lausanne to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne under the lead of England France, which divided Kurdistan into four parts and formed the basis for genocidal attacks against the Kurds in the last century

The conference attended by 600 representatives of political parties, organizations and institutions from Kurdistan is taking place under the title “The stance of the people of Kurdistan on the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne”.

After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the lands of Kurds were divided here 100 years ago. No state that the Kurds were forced to live with after their division treated them as friends or brothers and sisters. They did politics to annihilate and deny the Kurds with all their means.

They divided Kurds, tribes and families into two. We ended up in Syria. After the French withdrawal from Syria, we had to live under the sovereignty of an Arab state which mobilized all its means to destroy us. They left us without an identity, denied our existence and displaced us from our lands through the Arab Belt. Still, the Kurdish people remain standing today, resisting and expressing their rejection of this treaty.”

Turkish attacks on Western Kurdistan

Remarking that the Turkish state’s attacks on Western Kurdistan developed as a continuation of the Treaty of Lausanne: “Not content with its genocidal campaign against our people in Bakur Kurdistani (Northern Kurdistan), the Turkish state continues similar genocidal attacks against our people in Rojava Kurdistani (Western Kurdistan) and Bashur Kurdistani (Southern Kurdistan) as well. The Turkish state has obtained international approval to destroy the Kurds and maintains the Treaty of Lausanne. Iran, Syria, Iraq and Turkey are taking common action to annihilate the Kurds.”

We must determine the basis of unity

A representative of Partiya Rizgariya Kurdistan (Kurdistan Freedom Party) said: “The consequences of the Treaty of Lausanne are discussed here today. Yet, what must we, the Kurds, do? We need to discuss and conclude this. What sort of work should we conduct? This is what this conference is organized for. This is what we are here today for. It is important that all our political structures act together. We must act around a common symbol. We must determine the basis of unity.”

Nure Alkış from the Coordination of Yazidi Community spoke about the pains suffered by the Kurds and other communities in Kurdistan for the past 100 years, saying: “Our people have suffered a lot as a result of the Treaty of Lausanne. As the Yazidi people, we have been through great pain because of our faith. The Yazidis are a part of Kurdish society and they have suffered genocides 74 times, the last one being in the 21st century when thousands of women and children from our people were massacred by ISIS.”

Kurdish unity against the treaty

HDP former MP İmam Taşçıer pointed out that Kurdish unity could eliminate the consequences of the Treaty of Lausanne, which, he said, removed the status agreement made between the Turkish state and the Kurds before.

Taşçıer continued: “The first assembly of Turkey was amended after this treaty. Some Kurdish deputies were murdered afterwards. The Kurdish language and culture were denied. Kurdish names of cities, towns and villages were Turkified. This conference should also conduce toward a national congress that Kurds should organize urgently. The political conjuncture and the reality in the Middle East require it.

We need to build our unity and it should involve all parties and organizations. Kurdistan was divided with the approval of sovereign states and a consensus was reached in Lausanne for the division of the Kurds. In order to eliminate the emerging consequences, we need to get united and do whatever it takes to achieve it. With the Treaty of Lausanne, Kurdistan was handed over to the Persians, Turks and Arabs. A policy of denial, annihilation and destruction began afterwards.”

We should take lessons from our history

Iraqi parliamentarian Dr Şoreş Hecî stated that the Kurds should produce politics to decide on their future on the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne. “We should do whatever is necessary to achieve unity. We should think about our future and present unity against this treaty by taking strength from the struggle of our people. We should unite around a common symbol and take lessons from our history. We should wage a struggle with our own culture. We should lay the foundations of our unity and frustrate the treaty of a hundred years ago. Conditions for this are available. It is enough to believe and act together.”

Crimes against the Kurds are ignored

Kurdish teacher Gulnara Azadî from Kazakhstan highlighted the fact that the massacres and crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated in Kurdistan for a hundred years have been ignored by international judicial authorities. Defining the Treaty of Lausanne as an approval for these crimes and massacres, Gulnara Azadî noted that the Kurdish people have paid great prices against the division of Kurdistan and maintained their existence with their own language and culture.

Demir Çelik, president of the Democratic Alevi Federation (FEDA), pointed to the importance of work for Kurdish national status. He stated that an independent commission should report the Turkish state’s crimes against the Kurdish people to all international institutions, adding that it was of great importance to coordinate diplomatic activities with international authorities such as the Council of Europe, the United Nations and the European Union.

Çelik also stressed the importance of waging a struggle at international level against the bans imposed on the language and culture of the Kurdish people.