During the stormy debates in the Assembly meeting in Baghdad to ratify the Anglo-Iraqi agreement, the question of the fate of Mosul repeatedly came up in the discussion. The deputies from Mosul, or at least the more or less freely elected figures who represent this city in the Iraqi Constituent Assembly, declared that the ratification of the treaty was linked to the defence of the territory and they demanded that formal commitments be made by Great Britain on this subject.

No promise is written in the text of the Anglo-Iraqi agreement, because England does not like to give any guarantee or security pact even to its future Dominions, but, as a reassuring communiqué from the British High Commission in Baghdad recently said, England is continuing its traditional policy and Iraq can count on its northern border being well defended.

The new route that Sir Percy Cox in fact proposed to the Turks at the Golden Horn Conference (19 May-5 June 1924), exceeds the ambitions that Lord Curzon had set out at the Lausanne Conference. Not only does the British delegation no longer discuss the Turkish claim to southern Kurdistan: Suleimaniah, Kirhouk, Erbil, Ravandouz and Mosul are Iraqi, Lord Curzon demonstrated this in Lausanne. There is no need to return to it. But, having discovered for six months the importance of the Assyrian problem and the necessity of resolving it, England proposes a rectification of the frontier which, starting from the confluence of the Tigris and the Khabour at Feich-Khabour, will go up the course of the Hazil, reach 37° 30', follow it to the course of the Great Zab, descend along the right bank of this river, pass between Gavar and Oramar and join the Persian frontier at the mountainous massif of Rasche-i-Raikan.

This new line, the mere statement of which seems to have struck the Turkish delegation with stupor, encompasses half of the Turkish vilayet of Hakkiari, to the north of the vilayet of Mosul. It attaches to Iraq the greater part of the territories inhabited before the war by the Assyro-Chaldean mountaineers (Nestorians) who, driven out by the Turks in 1917 towards Ormiah, were collected by England in Iraq and today form the core of the Assyro-Chaldean brigade (Lewies) whose battalions ensure English domination over Kurdistan.

It also annexes to Iraq Kurdish tribes which England assures aspire to merge into the Iraqi kingdom. The Turkish delegation points out in vain that these Kurds have always been attached to Turkey. As the bond of vassalage which united them to Constantinople was very fragile, England claims them and claims that their interests are linked to those of the Mosul plain.

A strategic reason in reality dominates these claims. The tribute of gratitude which England pays to the Assyro-Chaldeans, by reintegrating them into their homes, happens, by a happy coincidence, to serve the distant aims of British imperialism. By annexing this piece of Turkish territory, England secures possession of the mountainous bastion which dominates Mosul, and of the hub of communications which an enemy could use to attack Iraq. The passes of Tkuma and Ravanduz, which enabled the Russian divisions, in 1915 and 1916, to emerge into Iraq, will henceforth be in the hands of Great Britain. An article in The Times recently pointed out the strategic importance of these territories for the security of the Empire and of the land route to India. The mountain spur claimed by Sir Percy Cox can become an entrenched camp from which England will dominate the region of Lake Van and Diarbekir, that of Urmiah and all the passes and communication routes that lead to Armenia, the Caucasus and Persia. It will hold the acropolis of Kurdish nationalism, which it will be easy to subjugate and soon place at its service, following the example of Sultan Abdul-Hamid, who drew his best mercenaries from these mountains.

It is moreover very probable that the oil deposits of Mosul overflow the limits of the villayet of Mosul and extend into territory, Hakkiari. But these considerations are, for the moment, left in the shadows. It is in its capacity as protector of the Assyro-Chaldeans and the Kurds that England demands an enlargement of Iraqi territory towards the North. In 1910, the Encyclopedia Britannica gave the 34° parallel as the northern limit of Iraq. Today, this young state claims the 37°30' parallel as its natural border. Its ambitions are limitless.

However, the Kurds are under the most severe duress in the southern part of Kurdistan. Despite the promises made at Sèvres, an autonomous Kurdistan has not been established. The independence of Kurdistan, which the English diplomats had previously demanded, has ceased to interest them since they discovered that Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah, Ravanduz and Mosul were Iraqi. The Kurds, who were less convinced, had tried to form a national government in Sulaymaniyah, headed by Sheikh Mahmud. This small Kurdish state had held Baghdad in check for two years and, in 1922, forced all British officials to evacuate the Kurdish towns without delay. But the Royal Air Force finally got the better of this insurrection. Repeated bombings on the Sulaymaniyah region put an end to Kurdish independence. Sheikh Mahmud took refuge in Persia. The 499,336 Kurds of Mesopotamia now have nothing to do but endure the government of King Faisal, supported by the force of British bayonets.

There is no longer any question of Kundistan in the Treaty of Lausanne. The mandate for Iraq, like the mandate for Syria, however, included a clause relating to the rights of minorities, but England has substituted for the mandate a treaty of alliance which it signed with King Faisal. The question is now submitted to the Council of the League of Nations.