File 36/1919 Pt 3 ‘KURDISTAN POLICY & SITUATION’ [‎283r] (584/608)

On the 16th December the War Office, in a letter to 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. , emphasised [ 165326 ]
the strategic importance _ of Jezirec-ibn-Omar. They did not, however, press for its
inclusion within the frontier ot Mespotamia if there were any political objections, as it
was not essential for the protection of Mosul.
hegarding the northern boundary of Mesopotamia, they favoured the frontier
i an mended by the Acting Civil Commissioner for Mesopotamia in June 1919, and
supported by him in his reply to 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. telegram quoted above.
On the 19th December a memorandum by Major Noel was received in the Foreign [lesoss]
Office, in which he stated that the Turks knew that in the eastern vilayets they held
in subjection the two subject races, Armenians and Kurds, by playing off one against
the other, that they were equally hated by both, and that either community with
outside backing could squeeze them out. It was not surprising that their efforts to
win over the Kurds to the Nationalist cause by Pan-Islamic and anti-Christian
propaganda should have a certain measure of success when it was remembered that
the Kurd was a peculiarly gullible individual who only heard the Turkish side of the
case. No organisation for counter-propaganda existed, and the Kurkish intelligentsia,
the majority of whom had been banished from their country, were debarred from all
communication with their compatriots. There was scarcely a single European in the
majority of districts in the eastern vilayets. He could not help feeling that any
measure of success the Nationalists might have obtained with the Kurds must
necessarily be of a flimsy and ephemeral nnture. During four months journeyings in
Western Kurdistan he had never encountered anything except friendliness, openly
expressed hatred for the Turks, and a lively consciousness of the wide gulf between
the Kurdish and Turkish races.
On the 23rd December a note on Kurdistan was handed to the Secretary of State [ 166188 ]
for foreign Affairs by M. Berthelot, Chief Secretary for Political and Commercial
Affairs in the French Foreign Office. In this note he pointed out that it was impossible
to annex Kurdistan to Armenia, as this would mean putting the far more numerous Kurds
under the rule of the less numerous Armenians. He defined Kurdistan as consisting of the
vilayet of Diarbekir and the southern part of the vilayet of Van. He emphasised the
number of non-Mussulman Kurds living in this area, and also referred to the Christian
groups who lived among them. While concurring that the Kurds were not mere
brigands, he pointed out that they were divided into tribes and clans which, like the
Arabs, had hardly ever been united into a national State.
Kurdistan called for special treatment in view of its geographical situation and its
natural wealth. He suggested that the Kurdish areas should be divided between the
British and French. He took the opportunity of stating that, until some other
arrangement had been definitely agreed upon, the agreement of May 1916, in which a
considerable part of the Kurdish areas Wets to be in the French sphere, still bound the
contracting parties. European assistance was nowhere more necessary than in
Kurdistan. As it was impossible to make it a Turkish enclave An area of land belonging to one country and entirely surrounded by land of just one other country. between the Armenian
and Arab areas, he suggested that, at any rate as a temporary measure, a federal
organisation should be set up under European control (French or British according to
the zones, as had been done for the .Arab countries). This organisation would have to
enter into some relation with the new Armenian State. It must not be forgotten that
the Kurdish areas contained many groups which were likely to be oppressed under any
other regime than that of federal autonomy. He also made a suggestion that the
nominal suzerainty of the Sultan might be maintained side by side with local elective
councils under Franco-British control. He concluded by saying that no definite
decision as to Kurdistan could be arrived at until the status of the neighbouring States
of Mesopotamia and Armenia had been defined.
At the third meeting of the Anglo-French Conference, held on the 23rd December,
Lord Curzon suggested to M. Berthelot the following outlines of general policy which
might guide the British and French Governments in coming to a final decision :—
1. No mandate, whether English or French or Anglo-French, was possible or
desirable for Kurdistan as a whole, except, perhaps, for the moi^e settled
areas in Southern Kurdistan.
2. .Turkish rule, for obvious reasons which past experience made clear, should not
continue in Kurdistan in even a nominal form.
3. The Kurds were quite capable of making (and, according to his latest
information, were disposed to make) a working arrangement with the
Assyrians on one side and the Armenians on the other. The Kurdistan
question could not therefore be considered apart from the formation of the
Armenian State, on which the French and British were agreed.
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