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THE
SITUATION OF IRAQ TURKS AND THEIR GENERAL PROBLEMS |
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Dr. Meşkure Yılmaz
BÖRKLÜ |
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After
the First World War, the Middle East region which, had been under
Turkish domination for a long time,
was partitioned by the imperialist states of Europe. Within this
participation, land occupied by Iraq fell under English sovereignty.
Thus, this part of Turkish land was departed from Turkey together with
Turkish community living in the region for centuries. The majority of
population in the province of Mousul was Turks and this province was
among the holy lands included in the “National Pact” to be liberated.
However, English knew that the region has a rich oil reserve, and
because of the importance of oil, so that they would never allow that
this region to be under the control of Turkey. The Mousul Question about
which, a solution had not been reached during the Lausanne Conference,
could not be solved in the League of Nations and the Council of Justice
and Turkish-English Reciprocal Meetings either. Later Turkey gave up her
rights on Mousul due to the pressure of the European Great powers and
the Sheikh Sait Rebellion supported by the English. Later on Iraq became
an artificial state controlled by England and revolutions, dictators and
disorder reigned in the country. The Turks living in this country
generally benefited from the cultural rights parallel to the relations
between Turkey and Iraq. But after 1974 the pressure on the Turks living
in this region increased. Turks who were driven to the “fire line”
during the war between Iraq and Iran, and they faced many problems due
to the lack of authority in the north of the Iraq after the Gulf War. The
most important problems of Iraq Turks rise from the undemocratic regime
and dictatorships reigning in the country. This article is dealing with
the general situations and the problems of Iraq Turks (or Turcomen) and
examines the Turkish policies towards the region from the Treaty of
Lausanne to the present. |
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