IRAQ AND MOSUL.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16812, 2 June 1926, Page 4

IRAQ AND MOSUL.

The announcement that a settlement lias been readied between Britain and Turkey concerning Iraq and Mosul will be welcomed. Turkey lias agreed to accept the Brussels line as Die frontier'and to Mosul remaining under British control. This is in accordance with flic ruling of the League of Nations, provided Hint Britain would continue her suzerainty over Iraq in Uic meantime. it will bo remembered with what obstinacy during the tedious Conference of Lausanne the Turkish delegates urged their country’s claim to the city of Mosul and the province that hears its name. They finally agreed to delay the examination of the question until after the evacuation of Constantinople by the Allied forces, and accepted tho British stipulation that should no agreement bo reached within nine months the dispute should be referred to the League of Nations. But before that, for many days, tincy advanced some very imaginative historical and ethnographical arguments; and they also supported their arguments by threats of war. They adopted a very bellicose tone and demeanour, and it was only tile self-restraint of the British troops and the firmness of [he commander that prevented a breach of the peace. The Turkish demand for Mosul was probably inspired by the desire to share in the eventual exploitation of its supposedly rich oilfields, and the fear that the British Government intended, in the words of one of the self-appointed “ deputies for Atosul " who recently entered the Turkish Assembly, to build up “ a new Assyrian Empire.” The British Government lias expressed its determination to retire from Iraq so soon as the country is competent to govern itself without outside aid, which, at ttie present rale of development, is expected lo he in about four or five years. The agreement now announced should materially assist to expedite Britain’s withdrawal.