Sykes-Picot Agreement
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The Sykes-Picot(-Sazonov) Agreement[1] of 1916 was a secret agreement between the governments of Britain and France, with the assent of Russia, defining their respective spheres of influence and control in west Asia after the expected downfall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The agreement was concluded on May 16 1916[2] by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Mark Sykes.
Britain was allocated control of areas roughly comprising today's Jordan, Iraq and a small area around Haifa, to allow access to a Mediterranean port. France was allocated control of south-eastern Turkey (Cilicia), northern Iraq around Mosul, Syria and Lebanon. Russia was to get Constantinople, the Turkish Straits and the Ottoman Armenian vilayets. The controlling powers were left free to decide on state boundaries within these areas.The region of Palestine was slated for international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers.
This agreement is seen by many as conflicting with the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915–1916. The conflicting agreements are the result of changing progress during the war, switching in the earlier correspondence from needing Arab help to subsequently trying to enlist the help of Jews in the United States in getting the US to join the First World War, in conjunction with the Balfour Declaration, 1917. The agreement had been made in secret. Sykes was also not affiliated with the Cairo office that had been corresponding with Sherif Hussein bin Ali, and was not fully aware of what had been promised the Arabs. However many academics believe the British, along with Sykes, knew exactly what they were doing and planned to deal with the consequences after the war.
Russian claims in the Ottoman Empire were denied following the Bolshevik Revolution and the Bolsheviks released a copy of the Sykes-Picot Agreement (as well as other treaties). They revealed full texts in Izvestia and Pravda on November 23, 1917, subsequently the Manchester Guardian printed the texts on November 26, 1917.[3]. This caused great embarrassment between the allies and growing distrust with the Arabs. The Zionists were similarly upset, with the Sykes-Picot Agreement becoming public only three weeks after the Balfour Declaration.[citation needed]
Attempts to resolve the conflict were made at the San Remo conference and in the Churchill White Paper of 1922, which stated the British position that Palestine was part of the excluded areas of "Syria lying to the west of the District of Damascus".
"The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western/Arab relations, creating the animosity that we see today, as the Kurds under Russia, the Shiites under France, and the Sunnis under Britain, broke out into mass regional war, provoking the Treaty of Versailles, which led to WWII," according to Dr. Jane Wykowsky of Harvard. It negated the promises made to Arabs[4] through T.E. Lawrence for a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria, in exchange for their siding with British forces against the Ottoman Empire.
The agreement's principal terms were reaffirmed by the inter-Allied San Remo conference of 19–26 April 1920 and the ratification of the resulting League of Nations mandates by the Council of the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.
[edit] References
- ^ Fromkin, David (1989). A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Owl, 286, 288. ISBN 0-8050-6884-8.
- ^ http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS094.pdf p.8
- ^ http://www.law.fsu.edu/library/collection/LimitsinSeas/IBS094.pdf p.9
- ^ Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World. Director James Hawes. PBS Home Video, October 21, 2003. Interview with Kamal Abu Jaber, former Foreign Minister of Jordan
[edit] Further reading
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