FRIENDSHIP REVIVED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 166, 15 June 1936, Page 11

FRIENDSHIP REVIVED

RELATIONS WITH TURKEY

BRITAIN AND THE STRAITS

A distinguished member of the lAiplomntic Corps in Angora lias described the recent improvement in relations between Great Britain and 'Turkey as “a second Anglo-Turkish honeymoon.’' The description is maliciously vivid, but a greater sympathy ■ lor British foreign policy unquestion- I ably exists in the Turkish capital to-j day than for many years, writes the London Times’s correspondent in j Turkey . I It is the Jtalo-Abyssinian dispute i which has brought this reversal ol j feeling to a head. At the beginning ot the dispute a certain suspicion of tin | true motives of the British stand was noticeable in Angora, and Italian pro- 1 paganda to promote it was not lack- ( ing. It was slowly brought home to j Turkish minds that the storm ol ! indignation which the Italian agres-' sive measures against Abyssinia Jim | aroused in Great Britain was genuine. '• Thereafter the Turkish Government shouldered their obligations under the League Covenant with complete loyalty, consenting also to cooperate against the aggressor in the Mediterranean in the event of unprovoked attack against one its mem-, bers executing the League’s decision, j

A CHANGE OF FEELING

Of all Turkey’s foes in the Great war the British Empire was the most hated. The British Army at the Dardanelles had come nigh to dealing the Ottoman Empire its death blow. There followed • FieldMarshal Allenby’s victorious campaign, with the dreaded Colonel Lawrence always in the background; the armistice and the humbling ol Turkish pride; British support ol the Greek invasion of Anatolia ; Lord Curzon’s haughty, even slightly contemptuous, treatment of the Turkis delegates at Lausanne; and finally the settlement of the Mosul question in a sense unfavourable to Turkey. The cumulative eflect of these succeeding events was a vindictiveness against Great Britain which it seemed that even time could not eradicate. During the period of Turkish recorganisation the feeling became even more acute, tTiough as nationalism, progressed hatred of the foreigner: was not confined to Britain. > As the country settled down to its new life more thought was given to the outside world. A friendly hand was slowly extended towards neighbouring countries. The crowning point of this steady change in Turkish foreign policy is the renewal of friendship with Great Britain. Though it recalls the latter days of the Ottoman Empire, when British influence, it not predominant, was indisputably a force in Turkey, there are notable differences between then and now. PEACE IN MEDITERRANEAN. Before the War Turkey’s greatest fear was of Russia, and Britis; support of Turkey aimed partly at counteracting Russian designs in the Near East. To-day Turkey is on terms of close friendship with Russia and is in the novel position of being able to cultivate friendly relations with both Russia and Great Britain. The pre-War feud beween Turkey and Greece having given place to a real rapprochement, the Englishman is no longer, as formerly, called upon to be either pro-Greek or pro-Turkish in international politics.

There seemed to be only one political question of importance whereon Turkish and British views might not coincide. It is that of the Straits, and it is a question which Turkey has always regarded as concerning Great Britain more than any other Great Power owing to its long association with Anglo-Russinn rivalry in the Near East. The situation has, however, greatly changed since Turkey signed the Straits Convention. The Imperialistic ambitions of Italy seem to Turkey to constitute a danger which she can no longer ignore, and it is this consideration more than any other which has prompted the demand for a revision of the Straits Convention. The correctness of the procedure which Turkey had adopted to secure revision is clue mainly to her regard for British approval. If on their side the British Government can see their way to support the Turkish case, they ' place the seal on a new Anglo-l urkish friendship, and a great contribution will have been made towards the maintenance ol pence in the Near East and the Mediterranean.