In addition to disputing the territorial readjustments contemplated
by the Angora Treaty, the British Government challenged the transfer
to French capitalists of the former German concession for the
Bozanti-Nisibin sections of the Bagdad Railway. Lord Curzon pointed
out that Great Britain would not recognize the Franco-Turkish treaty
as overriding the Treaty of Sèvres, “whereby Turkey was herself to
liquidate the whole Bagdad Railway on the demand of the principal
Allies”; neither would the British Government assent to the award to
France of “a large portion of the railway without regard to the claims
of her other allies upon a concern which both under the Treaty of
Versailles and the Treaty of Sèvres is the Allies’ common asset.”[26]
“Apart from the immediate and premature advantage gained by France
by this transfer of a large portion of the Bagdad line to a French
company in advance—and therefore possibly to the prejudice—of the
reciprocal allied arrangements contemplated by Article 294 of the
Treaty of Sèvres and Article 4 of the Tripartite Agreement, it is
necessary to point out that these stretches of the railway which were
previously in Syria, but are now surrendered to Turkey, although
placed in the French zone of economic interest, ought naturally to
be divided among the Allies in accordance with the above mentioned
treaties.... The transfer to a French company of that part of the
railway which still remains in Syria does not in itself fulfil the
provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres, which stipulates for liquidation
by the mandatory and the assignment of the proceeds to the Financial
Commission as an allied asset.”
The correspondence was concluded by Lord Curzon with emphatic
statements that “when peace is finally concluded the different
agreements which have been negotiated up to date, including the
Angora Agreement, will require to be adjusted with a view to taking
their place in a general settlement”; that he was obliged “explicitly
to reserve the attitude of His Majesty’s Government with regard to
the Angora Agreement”; and that there must especially be reserved for
further discussion “all articles of the Agreement which appear to
infringe the provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres and the Tripartite
Agreement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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