M. Massigli, Secretary-General of the Conference.

LORD CURZON said that among the matters requiring to be laid down in the form of articles in the Treaty of Peace, which he hoped was about to be concluded, was the determination of the southern frontier of the Turkish dominions in Asia, i.e., that between Syria and Irak. This question was to have come before the commission as far back as the 27th November, only a week after the opening of the conference; but on the evening of the 26th November Ismet Pasha had asked Lord Curzon to defer public discussion of the subject pending a private exchange of views between them. Lord Curzon had gladly acceded to this request. The exchange of views took place, and afterwards developed into an exchange of written notes, which had been circulated to the principal Allied delegations. Unfortunately, this exchange of views and notes led to no result. The Turkish delegation retained unchanged their demand for the restoration of the Mosul vilayet to Turkey, and Lord Curzon was compelled to reiterate his refusal. There was, therefore, no alternative but to lay the matter before the commission, so that both sides should have the chance of stating their respective cases to the conference and the world. Lord Curzon had told Ismet Pasha a month ago that this course would probably be necessary, and a few days since he had informed his Excellency, and also his French and Italian colleagues, that he proposed to discuss the matter at the commission on the present day. He therefore asked the Turkish delegation to state their case, after which he would give the British. reply.

ISMET PASHA read the following statement :

"The Mosul question has formed the subject of both oral and written discussion between the Turkish and British delegations.

For the correspondence between Lord Curzon and Ismet Pasha, see Appendix (pp. 363 to 393).

I beg leave to review the arguments used by the two parties and the reasons for which Turkey cannot consent to the cession of the Vilayet of Mosul to another Power.

66

These reasons are ethnographical, political, historical, geographical, economic and military.

66

"I.-Ethnographical Reasons.

The stationary population of the Mosul Vilayet amounts to 503,000 persons. The vilayet also contains nomad tribes-Kurdish, Turkish and Arab-amounting to about 170,000 people.

"These nomad tribes move from place to place according to the season, and at certain times of year they even leave the Vilayet of Mosul. It is therefore impossible to fix their numbers exactly. They pass the different seasons, according to their needs, in the districts of Bagdad, Nejef, Mosul, Zor, Diarbekir and even on the tablelands of Iran; that is why they cannot be regarded as really forming part of the population of the Mosul Vilayet.

"The 503,000 people who constitute the stationary population of this province consist, according to the latest Turkish official statistics, of:

LORD CURZON hoped that Ismet Pasha would pardon him for interrupting for one moment. His Excellency appeared to be reading out the first written reply of the Turkish delegation to the first written statement of the British views-a voluminous document of some five pages of print. If Ismet Pasha proposed to read out the whole of that document, it would take up most of the morning, and he hoped that his Excellency might be willing to summarise it in a more concise form. He had no desire to interfere with his Excellency's speech, but merely to suggest that much time and trouble would be saved if the document, instead of being read, were circulated to the delegations.

ISMET PASHA said that the statement which he was about to make was as brief as possible. He continued :

"This table shows (a) that the Arab element is insignificant in the Sanjaks of Suleimanieh and Kerkuk; (b) that in the central Sanjak of Mosul there are only 28,000 Arabs as against 137,000

Yesidi.

Non-Moslems.

Total.

Turks and Kurds; (c) that in the whole Vilayet of Mosul there are 410,790 Turks and Kurds as against 43,210 Arabs and 31,000 nonMoslems. More than four-fifths of the population of the vilayet thus consists of Turks and Kurds, and less than one-fifth of Arabs and non-Moslems.

"This is the point over which the first Turco-British controversy arises.

"The British delegation not only contest the figures supplied by us, but further declare (a) that the Turkish Government has never been able to draw up exact statistics regarding the population of the Vilayet of Mosul; (b) that, on the other hand, British officers and officials have since the armistice of 1918 travelled throughout this region and ascertained with far greater precision than we the number and proportions of the inhabitants of all races and religions.

"It is easy to reply to this statement. Turkey has had effective possession of the vilayet for centuries, and, owing to the necessities of military recruiting, she was obliged to have precise knowledge of the movement of the population. The Turkish statistics were, moreover, compiled before the great war, after minute investigation; and at that time there was no political motive for falsifying the figures which indicated the proportions between the various elements of the population.

"The British Government, on the contrary, has never effectively mastered this vilayet; and, further, the British officers and officials. have never yet been able to penetrate into the Sanjak of Suleimanieh. It is thus clearly impossible to admit that a few officials, going through only a part of a province over which the authority of their Government is not even established, could draw up exact statistics for the whole province.

"Under these conditions it must be recognised that the Turkish statistics are the only ones consonant with fact.

"Then again, according to the figures furnished by the British delegation, the population of the Mosul Vilayet included in the year

66

185,763 454,720 65,895 62,225 16,865 785,468

As will be seen, the British Government itself recognises that the Arabs and non-Moslems form the minority of the population in the province, and that the Kurds and Turks are in a majority.

"I will now give some information regarding the various

Turks.

Christians.

Jews.

Total.

elements of which the population of the Mosul Vilayet is composed, and their distribution.

"The Arabs are situated almost entirely to the south of the line Gayara-Sanjar and on the right bank of the Tigris. If you exclude a narrow strip of territory between Fethie and Kerkuk, the district on the left bank of the Tigris is entirely peopled with Kurds and Turks. In Mosul town itself three languages are spoken-Turkish, Kurdish and Arabic; but the inhabitants of the town who now speak Arabic and are taken for Arabs are really Turks who, having been in constant contact with the Arabs for a long time, have learnt both languages. Those who know the country realise that the inhabitants of Mosul have never regarded themselves either as Arabs or as forming part of the population of Irak.

66

The British delegation recognise that Tel-Afr is a Turkish town and that there are numerous Turkish villages around Mosul. In fact, the Nahies of Chehian and Achair-i-Seba, which are united with Mosul and comprise 146 localities, are entirely inhabited by Turks; and the Nahie directly dependent on Mosul, comprising seventy-seven localities, has a population the great majority of which are Turks.

"The Turkish character of this district and of the Kerkuk and Erbil districts is, moreover, recognised by the British Government itself, since the proclamations addressed by British officials to the local population are drawn up in the same Turkish language as that in use at Constantinople.

"The Yazidis are Kurds, and naturally have the same manners and customs as the Kurds; they only differ in the religious sect to which they belong. It is therefore unfair to differentiate them from each other, just as it would be unfair to regard the people of one nation, some of whom are Catholics and others Protestants, as belonging to different races.

It has been argued that the Turks of the Mosul Vilayet are Turcomans and not Turks, and that their language differs from the Turkish spoken at Constantinople.

"Now, as a matter of fact, the Turkish in use at Mosul is the same as that in use in Anatolia, and there is no place in the whole of Asia Minor where the spoken Turkish is identical with that of Constantinople.

"The same thing may be observed in all countries where a single language always varies slightly from town to town and from province to province.

"It is, moreover, an undoubted fact that the Turks of Anatolia belong to the group described by the name of Turcomans. There is therefore no serious foundation for the differentiation which it is sought to establish between the Turks of Mosul and those of Asia Minor.

"It has been said that the Kurdish This statement is contradicted by the which recognises that the origin of the and thus confirms the argument of the

people is Iranian in origin. Encyclopædia Britannica,' Kurdish people is Turanian, Turkish delegation.

"Those who know Anatolia are aware that as regards manners, usage and customs the Kurds do not differ in any respect from the Turks, and that these two peoples, while they speak different languages, form a single unit in respect of race, religion and

manners.

"The Christians who live in the districts in question are chiefly Nestorians, Assyrians and Chaldeans.

"When the Vilayet of Van was invaded by the armies of Tsarist Russia the Nestorians acted in such a traitorous and cruel. manner towards their Moslem compatriots, with whom they had been living side by side in complete tranquillity for centuries, that they felt bound to leave the country with the Russians when the latter retreated.

"The Chaldeans, and more especially the Assyrians of the Vilayet of Diarbekir never let themselves be influenced by foreign agitation and they are still living on terms of perfect understanding with their Turkish compatriots.

"The British delegation are obliged to recognise that the great majority of the population of the Mosul Vilayet consists of Turks and Kurds (more than 85 per cent. according to the Turkish statistics the only statistics the accuracy of which can be guaranteed—and more than 66 per cent. according to the statistics of the British themselves); but they regard the three Vilayets of Basra, Bagdad and Mosul as an indivisible whole with an Arab majority.

66

The Turkish delegation cannot agree with this view, for history, geography, ethnography and the economic needs of the Mosul district are all in contradiction with the British argument.

"Since the remotest times the districts of Mosul and Bagdad have formed separate States. Sometimes they have been incorporated in great Empires, such as the Persian Empire, the Empire of Alexander the Great, the Arab Empire and the Ottoman Empire, but they have almost always gone asunder after the disappearance of those Empires.

"It will be seen in the geographical section of our statement that as regards the lie of the land and the climate, the Mosul Vilayet forms part of Anatolia and not of Irak.

66

The same observation applies to the ethnographical character of the district-a point which is not contested by the British delegation.

"Lastly, since the railway connecting Mosul with the Mediterranean was built, this province is indissolubly united with Anatolia from the economic point of view as we shall prove presently.

"It has also been argued that as the majority of the population in the town of Mosul is Arab, the whole province should be united with Irak. We have already spoken of the population of the town of Mosul and do not wish to revert to the subject; but even if the abovementioned statement was in accordance with fact, there would be no reason why an Arab majority in the capital of a province, which