ALLIES MUST CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 70, 23 March 1920, Page 7

ALLIES MUST CONTROL

REPLY TO MOSLEM DELEGATION

SAME PRINCIPLES FOR EAST

AND WEST.

(UNITED FP.ESS ASSOCIATION.—COPIRIORT.)

LONDON, 21st March,

A delegation from the conference held at Calcutta to consider matters relating to the Caliphate waited, upon the Prime Minister at Downing-street, -and urged the restoration, of the territorial status quo in Turkey, including the undisturbed presence of the -Sultan as Caliph at Constantinople, and no transference of authority over Moslem holy places. The delegation emphasised the desirableness of fostering Indian Moslem friendship.

My. Lloyd George, in replying, referred to Turkey's declaration of war against Great Britain in the midst of the most terrible struggle in history, by which the war was prolonged for two years. "We are not going to abandon," he said, "in the case of Moslem countries like Turkey, those principles we have ruthlessly applied to Christian countries such as Germany and Austria., The same independence will'be given to Mohammedans as to Christians. The principle of self-determination will be applied to non-Turkish peoples hitherto under Turkish rule. In the interests of civilisation the Allies are bound to exercise control in Armenia, where the Turks have shown incompetenoy to protect their own subjects, who were — massacred wholesale." The Premier stressed the fact that Indian Moslem opinion was largely considered in the settlement of the Turkish question.