What Issues Did the Sykes-Picot Agreement Cause

Many countries in the Middle East could fragment in the coming years. But with the possible exception of Iraqi Kurdistan, which has been grafted onto Iraq, there will be nothing more “natural” in this new order than what has been the status quo for a century. The myth of a better Sykes-Picot is just that – a fable that can either justify inconsistent middle East policy or advocate an internationally led effort to redraw the map. The Anglo-French statement was read in the minutes, Pichon commented that it showed the altruistic position of the two governments towards the Arabs and Lloyd George, that it was “more important than all the old agreements”. [91] Pichon also mentioned a proposed February 15 agreement based on the private agreement between Clemenceau and Lloyd George in December of the previous year. [91] (According to Lieshout, just before Faisal gave his speech at the conference on the 6th, Clemenceau presented Lloyd George with a proposal that seems to deal with the same subject; Lieshout accessed related British documents from the 6th century, while the date in the protocol is not documented with sources. [92]) The lower right corner of the map depicting the agreement the two men signed on May 9, 1916, just before their governments signed the agreement, reveals this in revealing detail. While Georges-Picot signed in black ink, Sykes used only a pencil. The agreement effectively divided the Ottoman provinces outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas under British and French control and influence. The countries controlled by Britain and France were divided by the Sykes-Picot line.

[5] The agreement gave Britain control of what is now southern Israel and Palestine, Jordan and southern Iraq, as well as a small additional area that included the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow access to the Mediterranean. [6] [7] [8] The France was to control southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. [8] George Curzon stated that the great powers were still committed to the Organic Settlement Agreement, which concerned governance and non-interference in the affairs of the Maronite, Orthodox Christian, Druze and Muslim communities in relation to the Vilayet of Beirut of June 1861 and September 1864, adding that the rights granted to the France in present-day Syria and in parts of Turkey under Sykes-Picot are incompatible with this agreement. [78] Colonial division has always been vulnerable. His card ignored local identities and political preferences. The limits were set with one rule – arbitrarily. At a briefing for British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in 1915, Sykes said, “I want to draw a line between the `E` in Acre and the last `K` in Kirkuk.” He swiped his finger on a map spread out on a table at 10 Downing Street, from today`s city on Israel`s Mediterranean coast to the mountains of northern Iraq.

In his introduction to a 2016 symposium on Sykes-Picot, law professor Anghie notes that much of the agreement is devoted to “trade and trade agreements, access to ports, and railway construction.” [50] It will be necessary to prevent regional actors from thwarting the contours of a proposal in order to pit external powers against each other and leave the region in chaos. It is therefore essential that at least a broad understanding and/or agreement be reached between the US, Russia and the EU. Only then will important states in the region such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran and Turkey be consulted. In the third phase, some local actors are invited to give their consent. Since the main intention was to assert British and French influence over the newly defined and imposed states, it does not matter symbolically that the final territories dominated by each power differ somewhat when the borders of the states were finally introduced. In fact, the original French area was intended to cover Iraq and Syria in a manner consistent with ISIS`s current territorial claims. The ISIL video sparked a major debate about the extent to which the Sykes-Picot deal could be blamed for the chaotic state of the Middle East today. To argue that this is so is short-sighted. On Monday, January 3, 1916, they reached an agreement and initialed a joint memorandum containing the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement. They had agreed on a compromise in the two main areas of divergence – they divided the Vilayet of Mosul on the Little Zab River into two parts, with the French taking the northern part (Mosul and Erbil) and the British the southern part (Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah), and Palestine to be placed under an “international administration, the form of which is to be decided after consultation with Russia. and then in consultation with other allies and representatives of the Sheriff of Mecca.

[31] [25] On April 21, Faisal left for the east. Before his departure, Clemenceau sent a draft letter on April 17 in which the French government declared that it recognized “Syria`s right to independence in the form of a federation of autonomous governments in accordance with the traditions and desires of the people,” and claimed that Faisal had recognized “that France is the qualified power to provide Syria with the assistance of various advisers, that are necessary to create order and achieve the progress they require. and on April 20, Fayçal Clemenceau assured that he was “deeply impressed by the altruistic kindness of your statements towards me while I was in Paris, and I must thank you for having been the first to propose the deployment of the Interallied Commission, which will soon leave for the East to determine the wishes of the local peoples regarding the future organization of their country. I am sure the Syrian people will know how to show you their gratitude. [95] After the Constantinople Agreement, the French turned to the British to develop their mutual wishes, and the British created the De Bunsen Committee on April 8, 1915 to examine British options. [45] Zionism was not taken into account in the committee`s report presented in June 1915,[46] which concluded that in the event of partition or zones of influence, there should be a British sphere of influence that would include Palestine, while accepting that there were relevant French and Russian and Islamic interests in Jerusalem and the Holy Places. [47] [48] The agreement provided a general understanding of the British and French spheres of influence in the Middle East. The goal was to divide the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire (without the Arabian Peninsula) among themselves. The “end of Sykes-Picot” argument is almost always followed by a representation of the artificial nature of the countries in the region. Their borders make no sense according to this argument, because there are people of different religions, sects and ethnicities in them. The current fragmentation of the Middle East is therefore the result of hatred and conflict – struggles that “go back millennia,” like the United States.