The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.
What was Sykes-Picot Agreement?
One hundred years ago Britain and France signed a secret agreement carving out “spheres of influence” that ultimately created the modern Western Asia after WWI. Agreement was mainly concerned with dividing Ottoman Empires territories among England and France and preserving their own colonial interests.
Why in news now?
West Asia lies in tatters.
Parts of the border between Iraq and Syria have been virtually erased by the Islamic State.
Syria itself is divided among multiple groups.
Iraq’s government has no control over at least a fourth of its territory.
Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region, has demanded freedom from Baghdad.
The Syrian Kurdistan region is being run by the Kurds themselves for the first time in several decades.
The regional map is fractured in many more ways.
The agreement was initially used directly as the basis for the 1918 Anglo–French Modus Vivendi, which provided a framework for the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in the Levant. More broadly it was to lead, indirectly, to the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire following Ottoman defeat in 1918. Shortly after the war, the French ceded Palestine and Mosul to the British. Mandates in the Levant and Mesopotamia were assigned at the April 1920 San Remo conference following the Sykes–Picot framework; the British Mandate for Palestine ran until 1948, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia was to be replaced by a similar treaty with Mandatory Iraq, and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon lasted until 1946. The Anatolian parts of the agreement were assigned by the August 1920 Treaty of Sèvres; however, these ambitions were thwarted by the 1919–23 Turkish War of Independence and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne.
The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations. It negated the UK's promises to Arabs[9] regarding a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria in exchange for supporting the British against the Ottoman Empire. The agreement, along with others, was made public by the Bolsheviks[10] in Moscow on 23 November 1917 and repeated in The Manchester Guardian on 26 November 1917, such that "the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted" The agreement's legacy has led to much resentment in the region, among Arabs in particular but also among Kurds who were denied an independent state.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/How-Sykes-Picot-Is-the-Root-of-Syria-Iraq-Sectarian-Conflicts-20160513-0028.html
The Sykes–Picot Agreement was a 1916 secret treaty between the United Kingdom and France, with assent from the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy, to define their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control in an eventual partition of the Ottoman Empire.
What was Sykes-Picot Agreement?
One hundred years ago Britain and France signed a secret agreement carving out “spheres of influence” that ultimately created the modern Western Asia after WWI. Agreement was mainly concerned with dividing Ottoman Empires territories among England and France and preserving their own colonial interests.
Why in news now?
West Asia lies in tatters.
Parts of the border between Iraq and Syria have been virtually erased by the Islamic State.
Syria itself is divided among multiple groups.
Iraq’s government has no control over at least a fourth of its territory.
Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous region, has demanded freedom from Baghdad.
The Syrian Kurdistan region is being run by the Kurds themselves for the first time in several decades.
The regional map is fractured in many more ways.
The agreement was initially used directly as the basis for the 1918 Anglo–French Modus Vivendi, which provided a framework for the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in the Levant. More broadly it was to lead, indirectly, to the subsequent partitioning of the Ottoman Empire following Ottoman defeat in 1918. Shortly after the war, the French ceded Palestine and Mosul to the British. Mandates in the Levant and Mesopotamia were assigned at the April 1920 San Remo conference following the Sykes–Picot framework; the British Mandate for Palestine ran until 1948, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia was to be replaced by a similar treaty with Mandatory Iraq, and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon lasted until 1946. The Anatolian parts of the agreement were assigned by the August 1920 Treaty of Sèvres; however, these ambitions were thwarted by the 1919–23 Turkish War of Independence and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne.
The agreement is seen by many as a turning point in Western and Arab relations. It negated the UK's promises to Arabs[9] regarding a national Arab homeland in the area of Greater Syria in exchange for supporting the British against the Ottoman Empire. The agreement, along with others, was made public by the Bolsheviks[10] in Moscow on 23 November 1917 and repeated in The Manchester Guardian on 26 November 1917, such that "the British were embarrassed, the Arabs dismayed and the Turks delighted" The agreement's legacy has led to much resentment in the region, among Arabs in particular but also among Kurds who were denied an independent state.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/analysis/How-Sykes-Picot-Is-the-Root-of-Syria-Iraq-Sectarian-Conflicts-20160513-0028.html
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