About a century ago.. the Ankara agreement to demarcate the borders between Iraq and Turkey

The common border between Iraq and Turkey extends more than 350 kilometers in very rugged mountainous areas, and its demarcation dates back to the 1920s, with the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague to use the Brussels Line, as a border line between the two countries.

After years of arduous negotiations, the demarcation agreement between Britain and Turkey was signed on June 5, 1926 within the Treaty of Ankara, according to which a line was adopted for the border between Turkey and Iraq, which is basically the northern border of the Wilayat of Mosul during the era of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkish forces launch military operations against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq near its border (Anatolia)

demarcation conditions

The Ankara agreement came as a basis for settling one of the most important problems that emerged after the First World War between Turkey and Britain, which became known as the Mosul problem, according to academic and researcher in modern history, Dr. Faris Turki.

He adds to Al Jazeera Net that when the Mundros Agreement was signed on October 30, 1918, which ended the war between Britain and the Ottoman Empire, the British forces had not controlled the Wilayat of Mosul, so Turkey saw that Mosul was part of its territory and that it was not covered by the Mundros Agreement, However, Britain, on the other hand, saw this area as part of the territory under its control.

Turki continues, that Britain and Turkey met in 1924 at the Golden Horn Conference in Istanbul to discuss the problem, but the talks between the two sides failed and did not result in any agreement, and the problem then turned into an international issue that was adopted by the League of Nations that was established in September / September 1924, with the formation of an investigation committee whose mission is to study all the details and merits of the problem with the help of all historical and geographical documents. This committee visited Britain and Turkey and met officials in the two countries. It also visited Iraq and reached many cities and towns to see the demographics of the region and to know people’s opinions and orientations.

Turki points out that the UN committee recommended that Mosul be owned by Iraq, and that the Brussels line, which represents the northern border of the old Mosul state, be the dividing line between Iraq and Turkey, and this opinion was adopted by the League of Nations and the International Court.

Terms of Agreement

And based on the decision of the International Tribunal, talks were held between Britain and Turkey in Ankara, where an “Ankara agreement” was reached, which stipulates that the Wilayat of Mosul will follow Iraq, and the Brussels line will be the dividing line, and that Iraq will give 10% of Mosul’s oil revenues to Turkey for a period of 25 years. According to Professor of Modern History, Dr. Ali Hussein Al-Alwani.

He explained to Al Jazeera Net that the border file between Iraq and Turkey was at the forefront of the issues of concern to the two countries, especially if we knew that the movements between both parties were taking place in ways far from the interventions of the state, but rather controlled by the tribes and clans living on both sides of the border, and the issue took a great danger to both countries. .

Al-Alwani attributes the stubborn British position in refusing to give Mosul to Turkey, to Britain’s desire not to provoke Iraq’s internal front against it, in addition to the pledges and commitments Britain made to the Iraqi government to preserve its borders and lands.

Afin: The demarcation was not fair from the Turkish point of view for historical, geographical and economic reasons (Al-Jazeera Net)

Mosul oil

Al-Alwani added that Iraq continued to hand over the share of Mosul’s oil to Turkey until 1954, when the payment stopped completely after the 1958 revolution and the advent of Abdul Karim Qassem to power, noting that until 1986 the Turkish budget came at the expense of the advent of this percentage.

He goes on to say that in 1986, as part of a settlement made by the then Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal with the Iraqi state, the revenues of Mosul were removed from the Turkish budget, in exchange for doubling the capacity of the Iraqi-Turkish pipeline in the same year and agreement on new prices charged by Turkey between 45-75 cents a barrel. One according to the amounts of export, and the Brussels border line separating Iraq and Turkey was modified by a small amount in favor of Turkey.

For his part, Assistant Professor of Modern History, Dr. Muhammad Ali Afin, says that the parties agreed that the term of the agreement would be 100 years, after which the normalization of the situation will be reviewed according to an international program.

He explained to Al Jazeera Net that the agreement gave Turkey the right to explore for oil in Mosul for 25 years, but the demarcation was not fair to Turkey from its point of view for historical, geographical, economic and religious reasons.

Afin points out that the agreement was fair to the Iraqi Arabs from their point of view because it included the Arabs of Mosul to Iraq, coinciding with the rising Arab tide and Arab resentment of the Turks at the time.

The history professor mentions that years after the signing of the agreement, Mosul officially joined Iraq on the 3rd of October 1932, when Turkey abandoned it for political reasons in order to maintain its relations with the West.

Ezzo believes that the reason for not solving the Kurdish problem in the Ankara Agreement is due to the absence of clear representatives of the Kurds in it (Al-Jazeera Net)

Kurdish problem

On the role of this agreement in deepening the Kurdish problem, Professor of Political Science at the University of Mosul, Dr. Mahmoud Ezzo, believes that the Kurdish problem was not only related to this agreement, but there were several agreements before it, including the Lausanne Agreement and before it the Sèvres Agreement, which divided the Kurdish groups among several countries, and that was Subject to several considerations, including not making both Iran and Turkey feel completely lost as a result of the First World War.

He adds to Al Jazeera Net that the other reason for not solving the Kurdish problem in this agreement is due to the absence of clear representatives of the Kurds during the negotiations, unlike the Arab parties that were trying to negotiate with the major countries.

He continues his speech by saying, "This is one of the policies that Britain and the major powers were following, by leaving a number of issues to be more like sustainable problems, trying to invest in them in the future in the event of their withdrawal, and the investment of the major powers in the Kurdish file was clear by making it a file subject to negotiation and blackmail with local forces, so It was not in the interest of the major powers to resolve this issue in a fundamental and important way that guarantees the rights of the Kurds."

Izzo shows that the distribution of the Kurds to Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, in addition to Armenia and Azerbaijan, aims to put pressure on the national governments that emerged in the post-World War I era, as well as keep the Kurdish card under their hands at the same time and keep both sides under the hands of the major powers.

Al-Afandi believes that the international situation requires the West to arrange its agreements and expand its influence in the hot zone (Al-Jazeera Net)

Treaty future

Despite the passage of decades since the signing of the agreement, some Turkish popular and partisan parties still see these agreements as unfair to the Turks, and their argument is that Turkey agreed to sign despite achieving great victories, according to the researcher in Arab-Turkish relations, Muhammad Qaddo Al-Affendi.

Regarding the current Turkish moves in northern Iraq, al-Afandi told Al Jazeera Net that the Turkish side believes that the agreement signed between Iraq and Turkey during the era of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, which gives the Turkish army the right to pursue the PKK inside Iraqi territory, is still valid, given that the successive Iraqi governments That agreement was not canceled but renewed and other details were added to it.

He notes that the current international situation in light of the Russian war on Ukraine and the construction of a military base in a Syrian port, and the establishment of an Iranian-Russian alliance supporting China and North Korea, which guarantees political and military consensus, makes the fearsome energy and food security weapon one of the pillars of this alliance that threatens the West and NATO directly in particular and the rest Bekaa in general;

These reasons make it imperative for the West to arrange its agreements and expand its influence and that of its allies in this hot region.

"From here, we must think seriously that the Turks are candidates to play an important role within the general trend of NATO and the West in general after the events in Ukraine and the problem of securing energy through pipelines, pipelines and ships that transport it to the Western consumer, and that Turkish lands are not only entrusted with protecting these supplies, but It may go even further, for fear of possible terrorist attacks outside Turkish territory that would harm Turkey and energy supplies to Europe."

The researcher believes that expanding the scope of the Turks' protection of power lines and the interests of NATO countries outside their international borders means a departure from the Lausanne Agreement that Europe imposed on Turkey 100 years ago.