TURKS REJECT TERMS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18345, 10 March 1923, Page 8

TURKS REJECT TERMS.

The rejection by the Turkish ■Assembly at Angora of the Allied terms, and the decision to appoint Ismet Pasha as envoy to continue discussion, indicates a desire to pursue negotiation from the point where it broke down at Lausanne. It is true that the specific demands contained in the resolution bring again into dispute certain questions which it was hoped were settled. It is apparent, all the same, that the future of Mosul and the abolition of the capitulations are to be again the two real contentious issues. The financial and legal dispute may be left to the experts for technical discussion. It may be taken for granted that so long as the Allies can be assured of the sanctity of foreign life and property in Turkey, there will be no quibbling about the form the protection assumes. Over Mosul, so long as Britain's voice can be made audible, there will be no yielding. At Lausanne Lord Curzon explained in the most uncompromising terms that Britain could not light-heartedly withdraw from that territory in favour of the Turk. There was a threefold pledge: to the Arab nation, given a promise "-of final freedom from Turkish control : to the Arab King, elected by the whole country, including Mosul; and finally to the League of Nations, under which Britain held a mandate covering the Mosul vilayet. He disputed the Turkish claim' to suzerainty on ethnological, economic, and strategic grounds. The people, he said, were Arabs or Kurds, not Turks. Mosul was -economically related to Syria and Irak, not to Anatolia. Finally, with the mountains of Mosul under Turkish control, there would be a perpetual menace to the safety of the Arab kingdom, and its capital. Bagdad. For these reasons he stood firm against the Turkish demand. The reasons still obtain. It may be expected, therefore, that even thoucrh npcrotiations mav be re- ; su"">ed. Britain will be adamant in i resisting the Turkish claim to Mosul.