THE KURDS
SIR,—In the notice of Kurds, Turks and Arabs pub- lished in the Spectator of January 17, your reviewer berates the British Government for not having given effect to the Treaty of Sevres, Iraq for being what it is, and me for finding satisfactory the decision of the League of Nations in the Mosul controversy.
It is not for me to say whether, at the time of the Chanak crisis, the thirteen signatories of the Treaty, or failing them the United Kingdom alone, ought to have resumed hostilities with Turkey in order to enforce ratification and implementation.
For geographical and human reasons, even in the most favourable international conditions, the establishment of a united, independent Kurdistan would have required many years of firm paternal rule of the kind which it is now fashionable to condemn or deride as 'imperialistic' or 'colonial.' But after 1922 the issue was simply whether the vilayet of Mosul should revert to Turkey, be incorporated in Iraq, or be partitioned.
Whatever the faults of Iraq may be, of the four Middle ,Eastern countries in which the Kurds are found it is in Iraq that they have had the fairest deal: it is only there that they are legally recognised as a minority having certain rights of their own qua Kurds, that the Kurdish language is used for elemen- tary education, local administration and legal pro- ceedings, and that there is any lively Kurdish cul- tural and journalistic activity. As for Layard's dream, it has in large measure come true, and the Kurds of the Mosul vilayet are among the beneficiaries.— Yours faithfully, C. J. EDMONDS Heronden, Hawkhurst, Kent
Previous page
