THE MOSUL QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 19016, 11 August 1925, Page 6

THE MOSUL QUESTION.

On the face of it, and provided it could get witnesses to express their opinions, the Commission of the League of Nations which for months past has been taking evidence in Northern Mesopotamia had a not specially difficult task. It was to say whether a district roughly corresponding to the vilayet of Mosul should be joined to Iraq or to Turkey. The Commission in its report has chosen to complicate the issue by what is practically a vote of no confidence in the new kingdom of Iraq. That must appear as hardly giving a fair chance to the new kingdom to show what it can do. Its Constituent Assembly was only established a year ago. It is only preparing now to have ! done with leading gtringb . £ka

made with Great Britain in 1922 was arranged to expire in 1928, or as soon as Iraq should become a member, instead of a ward, of the League of Nations, a promotion which Great Britain, as its guardian Power, stood pledged to do her best to expedite. But ths. League’s Commission has expressed its belief that it is hardly to be hoped for that this State will over ho able to walk alone. By diffusing such distrust, before the commencement of a trial, it must make the maximum difficulties for its government. The Commission’s recommendation appears to be that the debatable northern region, including Mosul, belongs most naturally to Iraq, but it is unwilling to trust it to Iraq except on a most invidious condition. The condition is that Great Britain shall continue to be responsible for the new kingdom, under the mandate of the League of Nations, for twenty-five years to come. That certainly will not please tho people of Iraq, with a natural impatience to stand on their own feet. It is worse than awkward for Groat Britain, who stands engaged to the Arab State to hasten the time when it will walk alone, and who, if the Commission’s report should be confirmed by the League, must cither violate that engagement, and endure all tho rovilings that would be certain to ensue, or see the whole Mosul vilayet transferred to Turkey, for tho sake ostensibly of a more certain stability of government. The Mesopotamians would be as much outraged by that development. Mosul is not naturally a part of Turkey. Lying at the foot of the Kurdish mountains, winch divide it from Anatolia, it belongs geographically to the Mesopotamian plain. Its trade goes south-east, by the Tigris, to Mesopotamia, and not past , the mountains to Turkey. Let the Turks once bo placed in possession of Mosul and their hold on Kurdistan, now very much of a buffer State and a protection for Iraq, would bo immensely strengthened, with the result that that kingdom would be at their mercy whenever they might choose to attack it. If the Council of the. League wishes to escape discredit it will refuse to ratify this amazing report.