'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎164r] (325/501)

3
village is 1 urkish or Kurdish. But it is enough to say that for this theoiy there is no
historical or other evidence of any weight, and that it is one which the Kurds them
selves would reject with scorn.
The British delegation therefore maintains the claim put forward in its previous
memorandum, that the only element of the population or the Mosul Vilayet which
can be said to be connected with the population of Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. by racial affinity is the
Turkoman, which numbers only one-twelfth of the total population.
2. Political.
Even if it were admitted that the small “Turkish” minority of the Mosul
\ ilayet would be glad to return to the rule under which they enjoyed so many unfair
advantages, the British delegation denies categorically that this view is shared by
any other element. The views of the Christians and the Yazidis are so well known
that no further argument oh this point is required. As to the Arabs, the British
delegation not only repeats that these have unanimously voted for inclusion in the
Irak State, but maintains that after the exploits of the Arabs during the war and
the setting up of an Arab State in Irak with an Arab King at its head, no Arab
would hesitate for a moment in preferring to remain a subject of that State rather
than return to a rule which did not even recognise the Arab tongue as an official
language.
It is regretted that the Turkish delegation has misinterpreted certain admissions
which the British delegation, in the desire to be perfectly just and fair, included in
its previous memorandum. The people of the Sulaimaniyeh area did not refuse to
vote for inclusion in Irak. When the vote regarding the Emir Feisal w T as taken, they
were not asked to vote because, as the previous British memorandum stated, “being
a compact body of people of an entirely different race, they obviously required
separate treatment." The people of Sulaimaniyeh have always recognised that their
fate is bound up with that of Bagdad, which is practically their sole economic outlet.
The statement that “only the minorities of the town of Mosul .... voted for
Irak, whether it purports to be based on the British memorandum or on other
information, is without any foundation in fact. As the British statement on this
point has been disregarded, it is desirable to repeat it in greater detail. The proposal
that the Mosul Vilayet should be connected with the rest of Irak and should be placed
under the rulership of the Emir Feisal as King was supported by the whole of the
Mosul “ liwa " (Zakho, Dohuk and Agrah included), by the Erbil “liwa,” and by
the Kifri portion of the Kirkuk “liwa." The amount of “pressure” brought to
bear may be estimated from the well-known fact that a deputation from Kirkuk
which visited Bagdad could elicit from the High Commissioner no reply to their
enquiry as to the wishes of His Majesty’s Government regarding the plebiscite,
except the unvarying statement that they were free to do as they vdshed—a statement
which the people of Kirkuk acted upon with absolute freedom. 1 It may be admitted,
however, that there is good foundation for the contention that many of those of the
inhabitants of the Mosul Vilayet who voted for inclusion in Irak were actuated by
self-interest. It is the basis of the British case that it is to the advantage of every
inhabitant of the Mosul Vilayet to find himself within the boundaries of the
mandatory area, rather than to be united to a race which from the time when the
Tatar hordes destroyed the ancient irrigation system of Babylon has never done Irak
any good.
In regard to the Kurdish element, the Turkish delegation puts forward a
number of arguments. Perhaps the most curious is its representation of the bombing
of Rowanduz and other places to which Turkish troops had penetrated as an attempt
to weaken the attachment of the population to Turkey. On the other hand, the
Turkish delegation passes over in silence the two important considerations adduced
in the previous British memorandum, viz., (I) that in point of fact the Turkish
Government was rarely or never in effective control of Southern Kurdistan, and
(2) that the Kurds of Southern Kurdistan gave the Turkish Government no help
during the great war. If such general considerations as those now adduced by the
Turkish delegation are to be admitted, it is legitimate to recall that the Turkish
Government had constant trouble with the Kurds in the Dersim and other areas;
that in 1914 there was a serious Kurdish revolution in Bitlis, which was put down
with difficulty; and that many Kurdish chiefs and their sons were exiled to
Constantinople for years at a time lest the spirit of Kurdish nationalism should
concentrate around them and break out in revolt against Turkish rule.
The Turkish delegation quotes the Kurdish representatives in the Angora
[197 ee—1] B 2

'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎164r] (325/501)

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'Mosul Question, Lausanne 1922-1923 and after - Papers, despatches, speeches - Hotel de la Mer at Lausanne - Correspondence about oil' [‎164r] (325/501)

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