THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1936 TURKEY AND THE STRAITS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22393, 14 April 1936, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1936 TURKEY AND THE STRAITS

Adopting strictly correct procedure the Republic of Turkey has handed to the League of Nations and the interested Powers a Note asking for a revision of the Lausanne Treaty so far as it restricts Turkish sovereignty in the Dardanelles. British official circles, it is reported, consider that the request needs "care- | ful consideration." If this attitude j extends to the Cabinet it may be | concluded that at Geneva or elsej where Britain will lend a sympa- | thetic ear to the request. The ; moment is certainly opportune for ! Turkey, but it may also be opportune ! for Britain and some of the other | Powers among whom the idea of I treaty revision has been gathering I force. The set purpose of the "soldier-realists" of Turkey is to rid their country of its fetters, the i greatest being the demilitarisation of the Straits. Last year it was ; stated that if Austria, Hungary and ; Bulgaria were granted power to reI arm, Turkey would demand the revision of' the Straits Convention of 1923 and claim the right to refortify the narrow waters which have been a defensive zone of extraordinarily high value. With the acquiescence of Russia, formerly opposed to the rights conceded by the treaty to other nations for the passage of their warships through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, Turkey might have been tempted to adopt the measures recently employed by Germany in the Rhineland and taken steps in defiance of existing agreements. Instead she has employed ordinary diplomatic methods and for that reason alone, her request will inspire sympathy. Russia's consent, which has been clearly indicated, is one of the greatest arguments in Turkey's favour. In pre-war days Russia, desiring an ice-free outlet to the oceans, felt that Turkey's control of the Straits turned the Black Sea into a Russian lake. Turkey then was inclined to push westward, and the whole of Europe was agreed that her destiny did not lie in that direction. The outcome of the war which Turkey actually lost on Gallipoli, because it was there that her military strength was destroyed, even though British and French troops evacuated the peninsula without reaching the Narrows, was that her eastern provinces were dismembered. They were disposed of by mandate, and by the setting up of new Arab kingdoms. Yet the new Turkey, under an entirely different rule, has been resurgent. Apart from her occasional mention of the Straits question, she has had little voice in international affairs. The Government has been devoting all its energies to putting its house in order. On new frontiers where under the old regime complications might have been expected, there has been peace and co-operation, the new -spirit being witnessed by faithful obedience to the terms of the Treaty of Neutrality and Arbitration with Bulgaria, along the frontier of which there is a demilitarised area, and by her friendly relations with the Balkan States through the Balkan Entente. And not to be forgotten is Turkey's withdrawal of national influence from Egypt. No longer does her rule run near the Suez, but if she so willed, it would still be possible for her to foment trouble in Egypt. The new Turkish regime will come to any conference over the Dardanelles with her hands clean. The question still remains, however, whether control of the Straits can be restored to Turkey, even with the consent of Russia, without complications with the States which use the Danube as a waterway. It is still doubtful whether some of the Lausanne Powers which negotiated the treaty are ready to make a concession which would give to a country without a navy of any consequence complete power to hold the Dardanelles Straits. Yet what acceptable answer can be given to the Turkish contentions that the guarantees given in the Lausanne Treaty are now uncertain and inoperative owing to the rearmament of the Powers, that Turkish terr itory is no longer made secure by these guarantees, that political crises have demonstrated the present machinery of collective guarantees to be too slow in operating, and that delays cause the authority of international decisions to be lost? The power of Islam may no longer be behind the aspirations of Turkey —a Turkey that is a republic which has deposed its Sultan, and which does not hold Mecca or its gates. But the new Turkey speaks as a member of the League, as a country that has escaped from the eastern wheel. It is the one country in the world owning a waterway of great commercial and strategic importance. which is forbidden to fortify it or prevent the passage of foreign •ships of war. The reasons of the Allies in insisting on these conditions, conditions which at the time were accepted as part of a bargain, cannot be expected to carry much weight with the Turkey of to-day. Maybe some of the signatory Powers with eyes more on Russia than upon Turkey may insist upon the Straits remaining neutral water, but on general principles there is a case for "careful consideration."