Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎111r] (221/290)

5
absorbing the Sulemaniyeh district, which was the only Kurdish
area of any commercial value, the Kurds would be on our side. The
difference between the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. view and that of Colonel Wilson
was, that while the latter wished to incorporate Southern Kurdistan
in Mesopotamia, the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. favoured the establishment of an
autonomous Kurdish State which would he supplied with British
advisers at its own request, hut would remain politically distinct from
Mesopotamia.
The Chairman observed that the India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. proposal was
neither one thing nor the other. Kecognising that it was undesir
able to appear to thrust British advice on the Kurds they proposed
to leave it to the Kurds themselves to invite it. The result would
be the same in both cases. At the same time he did not see why
Kurdistan should not be reserved to His Majesty’s Government as an
area of economic priority to balance the areas in which it was *
proposed that the Italians and French should have a similar privileged
position. He explained that the idea at present before the Peace
Conference was not that certain areas of Turkey should be specifically
allotted to the respective European Powers for economical exploita
tion. This would have the appearance of a partition. What was
proposed was that the other Powers in each case should bind them
selves not to seek concessions in certain specified areas where one of
them had special interests. He believed that the Treaty would also
contain some clause by which Turks would undertake to appeal
only to the Allied and Associated Powers for commercial assistance.
He thought it possible that we might induce the French to agree
that the whole of Kurdistan should be reserved as a sphere of
British economic interest.
Major Young, replying to a question by the Chairman, said
that he did not see the same objection to a self-denying ordinance
on the part of the other Powers with regard to Kurdistan as he
did to the extension of British political influence in the Kurdish
areas. He was strongly opposed to any political interference on the
part of His Majesty’s Government in any Kurdish area.
With regard to the protection of the Hamadan road, he did
not see why it was necessary for the whole of Southern Kurdistan
to be advised by British officers to ensure the protection of a road
which could be guarded by a line of posts so long as it was required
for military purposes.
With regard to the repatriation of the Assyrians, he suggested
that this should be arranged by His Majesty’s Government in
communication with the Persians and the Kurds as a sepaiate
question after the Peace Treaty had definitely excluded Kurdistan
from the Turkish Empire.
The boundary between Persia and Mesopotamia might in any
case be reserved for discussion between His Majesty’s Government
and the Persian Government, and if the proposal to find a home
for the Assyrians by extending the Persian frontier were found
practicable, there would be no necessity for any other Power to
interest themselves in the negotiations.
The Chairman said that the question whether an extension of
the Persian frontier would have to be provided for in the Peace
Treaty and agreed to by the Turks, or whether it would be left for
discussion between the Persians, the Kurds and His Majesty s
Government, was a technical point which would have to be con
sidered by the Peace Conference. He thought that, as a result of
the discussion, he had formed a fair idea of the line to be taken
with the French in the forthcoming negotiations. They could be
told that, though British forces were actually in occupation of parts
of. Kurdistan at present, it had been decided to withdraw them and
to leave Kurdistan free to form itself into an autonomous State if it
desired to do so.
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