Treaty of Lausanne edit
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Treaty of Lausanne edit
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| Treaty of Lausanne | |
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| Signed - location |
1923 July 24 Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Signatories |  United Kingdom France.svg){kind=small} Italy Japan.svg){kind=small} Greece Romania Yugoslavia Turkey |
| Depositary | French Republic |
The Treaty of Lausanne (July 24, 1923) was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) that was signed by the Istanbul-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the Turkish War of Independence between the Allies of World War I and the Ankara-based Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish national movement) led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The treaty also led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire.1
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After the expulsion of the Greek forces by the Turkish army under the command of Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Atatürk), the newly-founded Turkish government rejected the recently signed Treaty of Sèvres.
Negotiations were undertaken during the Conference of Lausanne at which İsmet İnönü was the lead negotiator for Turkey and Eleftherios Venizelos was his Greek counterpart. The negotiations took many months. On November 20, 1922, the peace conference was opened, and after strenuous debate, was interrupted by Turkish protest on February 4, 1923. After reopening again on April 23, and after more protest by Kemal's government, the treaty was signed on July 24 after eight months of arduous negotiation by allies such as US Admiral Mark L. Bristol, who served as United States High Commissioner and championed Turkish efforts.
The treaty was composed of 143 articles with major sections including:2
The treaty provided for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for the protection of the ethnic Greek minority in Turkey and the mainly ethnically Turkish Muslim minority in Greece. However, most of the Greek population of Turkey and the Turkish population of Greece had already been deported under the earlier Exchange of Populations between Greece and Turkey agreement signed by Greece and Turkey. Only the Greeks of Istanbul, Imbros and Tenedos were excluded (about 270,000 in Istanbul alone at that time),3 and the Muslim population of Western Thrace (about 86,0004 in 1922). Article 14 of the treaty granted the islands of Imbros and Tenedos "special administrative organisation", a right that was revoked by the Turkish government on February 17, 1926. The Republic of Turkey also formally accepted the loss of Cyprus (which was "rented" to the British Empire following the Congress of Berlin in 1878, but de jure remained an Ottoman territory until World War I) as well as Egypt and Sudan (which were occupied by British forces with the pretext of "establishing order" in 1882, but de jure remained Ottoman territories until World War I) to the British Empire. The fate of the province of Mosul was left to be determined through the League of Nations. Turkey also renounced all claims on the Dodecanese Islands, which Italy was obliged to return back to Turkey according to the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912 (also known as the First Treaty of Lausanne (1912), as it was signed at the Ouchy Castle in Lausanne, Switzerland) following the Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912).5
The treaty delimited the boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey; formally ceded all Turkish claims on the Dodecanese Islands (Article 15); Cyprus (Article 20); Egypt and Sudan (Article 17); Iraq and Syria (Article 3); and (along with the Treaty of Ankara) settled the boundaries of the latter two nations.6 Turkey also renounced its priviliges in Libya which were defined by the Treaty of Ouchy in 1912 (Article 22).7
Among many agreements, there was a separate agreement with the United States: the Chester concession. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty and consequently Turkey annulled the concession.2
The Treaty of Lausanne led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire.8
The Convention on the Turkish Straits lasted only thirteen years and was replaced with the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits. The customs limitations in the treaty were shortly reworked.
Political amnesty was applied. 150 personae non gratae of Turkey (descendants of the Ottoman dynasty) slowly acquired citizenship - the last one was in 1974.
Since signing the treaty, both Turkey and Greece have claimed that the other side has violated its provisions. Turkey claims that the Greek islands close to Anatolia have not been demilitarized, as required by the treaty (Article 13).9 Turkey also claims that the enhancement of Greek national sea space in the Aegean Sea to 12 nautical miles will be a breach of the treaty and will be considered a casus belli. Greece claims that the ethnic Greek minority population in Turkey diminished from several hundred thousand in 1923 to just a couple of thousand today, due to the systematic enforcement of anti-minority measures (see Varlık Vergisi and Istanbul Pogrom). Greece also claims that Turkey didn't keep its promise regarding the "special administrative organisation" in the islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos) (Article 14).10
Hatay Province remained a part of the French Mandate of Syria according to the Treaty of Lausanne, but in 1938 gained its independence as the Hatay State, which later joined Turkey with a referendum in 1939. For many decades Syria didn't recognize the addition of Hatay Province to Turkey and continued to show it as a part of Syria on its maps.
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