Treaty of Sèvres

(Aug. 10, 1920), post-World War I pact between the victorious Allied powers and representatives of the government of Ottoman Turkey. The treaty abolished the Ottoman Empire and obliged Turkey to renounce all rights over Arab Asia andNorth Africa. The pact also provided for an independent Armenia, for an autonomous Kurdistan, and for a Greek presence in eastern Thrace and on the Anatolian west coast, as well as Greek control over the Aegean islands commanding the Dardanelles. Rejected by the new Turkish nationalist regime, the Treaty of Sèvres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausannein 1923.

Britannica Encyclopedia

Kurdistan

A Kurdistan region was scheduled to have a referendum to decide its fate, which, according to Section III Articles 62–64, was to include the Mosul Province.

There was no general agreement among Kurds on what its borders should be, due to the disparity between the areas of Kurdish settlement and the political and administrative boundaries of the region.^[12] The outlines of a "Kurdistan" as an entity were proposed in 1919 by Şerif Pasha, who represented the Society for the Ascension of Kurdistan (Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti) at theParis Peace Conference. He defined the region's boundaries as follows:

"The frontiers of Turkish Kurdistan, from an ethnographical point of view, begin in the north at Ziven, on the Caucasian frontier, and continue westwards to Erzurum, Erzincan, Kemah,Arapgir, Besni and Divick (Divrik?) ; in the south they follow the line from Harran, the Sinjihar Hills, Tel Asfar, Erbil, Süleymaniye, Akk-el-man, Sinne; in the east, Ravandiz, Başkale,Vezirkale, that is to say the frontier of Persia as far as Mount Ararat."^[13]

This caused controversy among other Kurdish nationalists, as it excluded the Van region (possibly as a sop to Armenian claims to that region). Emin Ali Bedirhan proposed an alternative map which included Van and an outlet to the sea via Turkey's present Hatay Province.^[14] Amid a joint declaration by Kurdish and Armenian delegations, Kurdish claims on Erzurum vilayetand Sassoun (Sason) were dropped but arguments for sovereignty over Ağrı and Muş remained.^[15]

Neither of these proposals was endorsed by the treaty of Sèvres, which outlined a truncated Kurdistan located on what is now Turkish territory (leaving out the Kurds of Iran, British-controlled Iraq and French-controlled Syria. However, even that plan was never implemented as the Treaty of Sèvres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne. The current Iraq-Turkey border was agreed in July 1926.

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