'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎198v] (394/501)

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in October 1922 with King Feisal, in which both parties, that is to say, the mandatory
Power and the Arab State pledge themselves not to cede or lease any territory in Irak.
That treaty has been signed, but it still awaits ratification. Now I was a little amused
pist now to hear Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. say that mandates had no interest for him, and that the
Turkish Government had never recognised mandated territories. But I seem to
remember a few days ago when discussing the Ottoman debt he was only too anxious
to saddle the mandated territories with the operation of the debt, and to regulate the
partition of that debt from the date of the armistice. It is therefore quite clear that the
mandated territories are recognised by him when it is convenient for his case.
“ I have thus stated the juridical and treaty basis of the British position and
interest in Irak, including the Mosul Vilayet, and I have shown to the commission that
the British Government are under a three-fold pledge: firstly, to the Arab nation, to
whom they promised that they should not be returned to lurkish rule; secondly, to
the Arab King, who has been elected by the whole country, including Mosul, and
with whom we have entered into obligations; and, thirdly, to the League of Nations,
without whose consent we cannot abandon our mandate over a large portion of the
mandated territory. The only point which remains undetermined is the northern
frontier of Irak, which has not yet been fixed by any legal instrument of the Allied
Powers.
“As regards the military occupation of the Mosul Vilayet, I should like to inform
the world that for the most part it is in the hands of the people of the country
themselves. It is not garrisoned by British troops, but by native forces and native
levies. The country of Kurdistan, about which so much has been heard, is held by
Kurdish and Assyrian levies. There are no regular British troops there In the rest
of the Vilayet of Mosul security is maintained by Arab troops commanded by Arab
officers, paid for by King Feisal. There is only a very small number of Pritish troops
north of Bagdad. Thus the military protection of the country is mainly in the hands
of the people themselves. I hope that my argument up to this point will have convinced
my hearers that it is quite impossible for my country consistently with a due sense of
honour to run away from the pledges it has given, to break its word before the world,
to cut. out the Vilayet of Mosul from the mandated territory and to give it back to the
Turkish delegation.
“ Will Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. allow me also to call his attention to the entirely novel and
unprecedented character of his request ? It will not be disputed that in Asia the
Allied Powers, represented in this case by the British Government and the British
armies, won the war. It will not he disputed that they wrested Mesopotamia from
Turkey, or that they have held and administered the whole of that country for more
than four years. Meanwhile it has been stated over and over again by authoritative
spokesmen of the Turkish Government that, recognising their defeat in the war, they
were quite prepared to accept the severance from their dominions of territories inhabited
for the most part by peoples of other races, and to concentrate their interest in the future
upon areas inhabited by people or the Turkish race. That is an object with which all
of us here have so much sympathy that we are endeavouring to frame a treaty which
will result in the building up of a Turkish State upon that basis: and yet the Turkish
delegation comes here and seriously contends that the British Government should hand
back a considerable portion of the area which it thus conquered and which it has thus
administered, because the Turkish Parliament at Constantinople in February 1920 came
to certain resolutions which have been called the National Pact, and which have since
been confirmed by the Grand National Assembly at Angora. I venture to say that
such an argument has never before been addressed to a nation or Government that has
been victorious in battle, and if it had been addressed at any time in their long history
to the Turkish Government it would have been received with ridicule. Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders.
said that it was contrary to the modern spirit to conquer anybody. Is that the sjnrit
in which the Turkish Government are going to conduct their affairs in future ? 1 do
not know, but I am not quite sure that it is the spirit in which they have conducted
these discussions in the last few weeks. But let that pass. After making these
remarks, I will now take in detail the various considerations which Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. has
been good enough to place before us.
“ Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. based his case for the surrender of the Mosul Vilayet by Great
Britain on grounds ethnographical, economic, historical and strategical. I will deal
with each of these in turn. He commenced by giving us a series of figures and
statistics of the population in the Mosul Vilayet. Will he allow me to point out that
these statistics are destitute of any real value? In the first place he did not give us
the date at which they were compiled, but it is quite obvious that they could only have

'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎198v] (394/501)

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'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎198v] (394/501)

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