23 NOVEMBER 1918, Page 2

Lord Robert Cecil in the Commoas on Monday made an

important and, on the whole, reassuring statement about Turkey and the Armenians. The War Office had already announced that the Turks must evaouate the Caucasus, where Baku had been reoeoupied by British and Russian troops, and that all Turkish _troops were leaving. Cilicia and -the Mosul district. But there. is. still much. anxiety, as to the fate of Armenia, owing to the vague wording of the armistice. Lord Robert Cecil, speaking for -himself; said that. Armenia ought t6 be freed from Turkish misrule, and that the Kurds and Armenians would live amicably together if the Turkish -influence were removed. The Government, he declared, would not permit any fresh outrages dictated from Constantinople. He warned the Turks that their old trick of -procrastinating was useless now that they were in our power. In regard to Constantinople, he said that Mr. Lloyd George's hasty remark last January that the Turks- should- keep the city was not binding on the Government The evil forces predominating in Constantinople, he thought, must be deetroyed, and the passage of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus must be freed: The Allies must go further than that when they dictate their terms to the Turks.