At the end of the first World War, territorial problems concerning the disappearing Ottoman Empire concerned the Mosul area, a longlasting integral part of the Empire. It was left outside the Turkish territory and retained under British control in its capacity as mandatory for Iraq because of its oil deposit (July 24, 1923, Treaty of Lausanne). The matter was discussed again and a new treaty was signed later by Turkey and GB, stating that the first would have surrended all rights to Mosul in return of 10% of the oil produced in the area (June, 1926).
This all shows the rooted Turkish interest in that old part of Ottoman territory, which in the very unstable situation of possible Kurdish indipendence opens the road to different hypothesis. The solution voted by the USA Congress the 27th of September foresees actually not a full indipendence but a Federal system, so the boundaries meant to belong to Iraq should not be negotiated again by the semi-autonomous new entities of the Iraq Federal Goverment. But although they are preserved as now, would be the Kurdish semi-Indipendent Region able to accomplish the same commissionment to fight PKK terrorists as the present Iraqi goverment?
Turkey waits and watches...keeping its troops on the border...
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3 comments:
hrant dink gave me a phd thesys (?) about this topic. i should give you a copy of it, it's in french. no problem with you, do you?
don't forget mikele, he is often on the border as well...
I'm waiting for the PhD thesis, and tell Michele to stop strolling around between Kosovo and Iraq and start to read me!
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