Turkish offensive in Syria: why was the Sevres treaty that granted a state to the Kurds never been respected?

Over the centuries, Kurds have preserved their culture, languages ​​and traditions within a clan organization that has never found echo in diplomatic discussions. Still, it was virtually acquired, as early as 1920, that the latter would be able to benefit from an independent state, or at least open the way to the establishment of it. Except that nothing went as planned …

The question of a Kurdish state goes back to an old treaty, signed a hundred years ago before being questioned: following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, at the end of the First World War, the Treaty of Sevres opened the way for the creation of an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds were then part of the Ottoman Empire and saw themselves for the first time granted the opportunity to become a nation similar to others. In fact, however, the treaty, initialed by Sultan Mehmed VI, has never been ratified or applied.

The territory then attributed to the Kurds was located in the eastern parts of Anatolia, shattering the geography of historical Turkey. An insupportable idea for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, at the time general, who went to war, first against the Armenians, then against the Greeks.

Victorious, he was able to impose a new treaty, that of Lausanne which will replace that of Sevres, whose agreements were broken at the same time. Signed between the government of the Turkish parliament led by the father of modern Turkey and the signatory powers of the Treaty of Sevres at the end of a peace conference organized from November 1922 to July 1923 in Switzerland, the Treaty of Lausanne defined new Turkish borders, allowing the country to recover territories over Greece, while putting an end to the economic and financial privileges of certain foreign states.

A consecration of Turkish domination that also recognizes the existence of Jewish and Christian minorities (Armenians and Greeks), "privilege" that will not get the Kurds.

The Treaty of Lausanne then consecrated the domination of Turkey, Iran, the United Kingdom (for Iraq) and France (for Syria) on the Kurdish populations.