Draft:Northern Syrian regions

The Northern Syrian Provinces, the Northern Syrian Sanjaks, or Cilicia and Upper Mesopotamia, are areas of northern Ottoman Syria that were annexed to Turkey under the Ankara Agreement in 1921 between France and the Turkish national government in exchange for Turkey's recognition of the French mandate over Syria. The Allies adopted the bilateral agreement in the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 to draw a new border line in 1923 between Türkiye on the one hand and Britain and France on the other hand. The new treaty came as an amendment to the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, which followed World War I and delineated Turkey's borders with its neighbors, significantly reducing the area of Turkey compared to the Ottoman territories, especially in Europe, where virtually all of Rumelia was granted to Bulgaria and Greece. As a result of the French losses in battles within Anatolia against Turkish nationalists, the Allies were forced to make concessions to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in order to resolve the aftermath of World War I and reach a peace agreement with Turkey. Since Syria was under French mandate, this facilitated the French in making concessions regarding the territories under their control, particularly to punish the Syrians for their resistance to the French invasion in the Battle of Maysalun and its aftermath.

Location and Geography:

These areas lie north of the railway line between Istanbul and Baghdad, which served as a modified border between Turkey and Syria (in the Treaty of Lausanne) up to the current junction of the Syrian-Iraqi-Turkish border. This arrangement placed the following regions (from west to east) within Turkish territory: Mersin, Tarsus, Cilicia, Adana, Maraş, Gaziantep, Kilis, Birecik, Urfa, Harran, Diyarbakır, Mardin, Nusaybin, and Cizre. Additionally, the new border ran along the railway through the cities of Nusaybin, Jarabulus, and Ras al-Ain, dividing them between Syria and Turkey. A rough estimate regarding the area of these regions (the difference between the borders of the Treaty of Sèvres and the Treaty of Lausanne) to be more than 18,000 square kilometers.

The peaks of the Taurus Mountains and the Zagros mountains connecting Diyarbakır (in the northeast), Maraş (in the north-central), and Mersin (in the west) served as the dividing line between Arab lands and Turkey, or the Arabian Plate and Anatolia geographically. The French-British correspondence leading to the Sykes-Picot Agreement explicitly referenced the borders of Syria. In the following text, French President Briand's instructions to his ambassador in London, Paul Cambon, and French negotiator Georges Picot at the French Foreign Office on October 9, 1915, state:

"After presenting this reservation, it appears that the simplest solution may be to establish the current administrative borders of Syria. Thus, its territory will include the provinces or districts of Jerusalem, Beirut, Lebanon, Damascus, and Aleppo, and in the northwest, the entire province of Adana located south of the Taurus."

Historic connection with the Levant

In the twelfth century, the scholar Al-Idrisi visited these regions and wrote in his book *Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaaq* at the beginning of the fifth section of the fourth region about this area as follows:

"...Among the lands of the Levant are Tarsus, Latakia, Antioch, Masyaf, Adana, Ain Zarba, Tarsus, Qirqos, Hamartash, burned Antalya, modern Antalya, Batara, Mayra, Jun al-Maqri, and the fortress of Istroplis. In the inland areas of the Levant are Famiya, the fortress of Salmiya, Qinnasrin, Al-Qastal, Aleppo, al-Raṣāfa, Raqqa, Al-Rafiqah, Bajrawan, Al-Jisr, Manbij, Maraş, Suruç, Harran, Edessa, Al-Hadath, Samesat, Malatya, the fortress of Mansur, Zabtara, Jarsun, Al-Lin, Al-Badndur, Quwat, and Tulb. All of these lands must be elucidated in our accounts.."

History of these lands:

These regions constitute the northern part of the Fertile Crescent, encompassing vast plains and fertile lands, such as the Harran Plain, along with abundant water sources from the Euphrates, Tigris, and Khabur rivers. Geographically, this land is considered part of natural Syria, situated south of the Taurus Mountains, which serve as the natural boundary between Syria and Turkey.

This land was inhabited by Arab tribes that arrived during the Islamic conquests. Among the most prominent tribes in the area are the Banu Bakr bin Wa'il (from whom Diyarbakır is named), as well as Taghlib and Anza, all of which belong to the Rabi'ah tribe. Al-Idrisi mentioned these regions in his book *Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaaq*, writing in one section of the text:

"The regions of the lands of Rabi'ah include Nusaybin, Erzincan, Amid, Ras al-Ain, Mardin, Ba'arbay, Sinjar, Qardā, Bazbda, and Tur Abdin."

During the seventeenth century, the Ottomans succeeded in eliminating the feudal estates and hereditary Arab principalities north of Aleppo, reallocating lands instead to local Janissaries and prominent Ottoman cavalrymen known as Sipahis. In other parts of the country, however, the feudal conflicts that drained the nation's resources and destabilized the provinces persisted. Some historians have noted that the abolition of feudalism and its subjugation to the military represented a prioritization of Turkish elements over Arab ones. Thus, this period is considered the beginning of the demographic changes that led to the emergence of the issue of the northern Syrian provinces.

During Ibrahim Pasha's rule in Syria, between 1832 and 1840, he insisted during negotiations with the Sublime Porte to include these regions in his father Muhammad Ali Pasha's jurisdiction to prevent his entry into Istanbul. Sultan Mahmud II ceded these areas to Ibrahim Pasha under the Treaty of Kütahya. Most of these regions remained part of the Aleppo Province and the Sanjak of Deir ez-Zor according to Ottoman maps and administrative divisions in the nineteenth century until the end of the Ottoman Empire.

The seizure of these lands from Arab lands

The regions and the Hatay Province (Iskenderun) were referred to as disputed areas in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence. In a letter sent by Hussein bin Ali (the Sharif of Mecca) to Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, on July 14, 1915, it was stated that the northern borders of the future Arab state should extend to Mersin and Adana, including the Iskenderun Province. However, McMahon suggested in his letter to Sharif Hussein on October 24, 1915, to exclude this area, claiming that its inhabitants were not entirely Arab. Sharif Hussein rejected this proposal and insisted on his stance in a letter sent to McMahon on November 15, 1915, but ultimately agreed to concede only Mersin and Adana.

After World War I, during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire among the victorious Allies, the agreement between France, England, and Italy on August 10, 1920, designated this region as part of the French sphere of influence, as defined by the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which affirmed French sovereignty over the territories between Cilicia and the western bank of the Euphrates. According to the aforementioned August agreement and as stated in Article 7, the cities of Kilis, Gaziantep, Birecik, Urfa, Mardin, Nusaybin, and Cizre were left to Syria, which was also under French mandate. When the Allies signed the Treaty of Sèvres with Turkey in 1920, Turkey recognized the regions of Iskenderun and Cilicia as integral parts of the Arab territories.

The Arabs were preoccupied with numerous partition issues, including the Jewish migration to southern Syria (Palestine) and the beginnings of their colonial project, resulting in few voices opposing the new borders. Nevertheless, the Arabs rejected the annexation of these regions to Turkey, as articulated in the statements from the Syrian General Conference and the first Syrian government formed in 1920, which emphasized the unity and independence of Syria in its entirety. Additionally, Sobhi Barakat and Ibrahim Hanano organized resistance against the French in those areas.

In defense of their regions, the Arab tribes in these areas participated in resisting French occupation alongside Turkish nationalists. This collaboration was driven by a shared desire to oppose colonial rule and maintain their sovereignty, reflecting the complexities of regional politics during that period.