Treaty of Lausanne

Treaty of Lausanne 1922-23. The peace treaty (see Sèvres, Treaty of ) imposed by the Allies on the Ottoman Empire after World War I had virtually destroyed Turkey as a national state. The treaty was not recognized by the nationalist government under Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later known as Atatürk ). After the nationalist victory over the Greeks and the overthrow of the sultan, Kemal's government was in a position to request a new peace treaty. Accordingly, the signatories of the Treaty of Sèvres and delegates of the USSR (excluded from the previous treaty) met at Lausanne, Switzerland. After lengthy negotiations a peace treaty was signed in 1923. Turkey recovered E Thrace, several Aegean islands, a strip along the Syrian border, the Smyrna district, and the internationalized Zone of the Straits, which, however, was to remain demilitarized and remain subject to an international convention (see Dardanelles ). Turkey recovered full sovereign rights over all its territory, and foreign zones of influence and capitulations (see Ottoman Empire ) were abolished. Outside the Zone of the Straits, no limitation was imposed on the Turkish military establishment. No reparations were exacted. In return, Turkey renounced all claims on former Turkish territories outside its new boundaries and undertook to guarantee the rights of its minorities. A separate agreement between Greece and Turkey provided for the compulsory exchange of minorities.

Lausanne, Treaty of (24 July 1923) A settlement which replaced the earlier Treaty of Sèvres, after the success of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in the Graeco-Turkish War (1921–2). Greece had to surrender Smyrna (Izmir) and eastern Thrace, including Adrianople (Edirne). Kurdistan lost its autonomy, while Turkey's reconquest of Armenia was confirmed. In return for these gains, Turkey accepted that Palestine and Syria were to be mandated to Britain and France. Italy was confirmed in the Dodecanese and Britain in Cyprus. The Aegean islands except Imbros and Tenedos remained under Greek sovereignty. The Dardanelles remained demilitarized and open to shipping, as supervised by a League of Nations Commission. This final settlement of the Turkish-Greek border resulted in a large refugee crisis, as over one million Greeks were forced to leave Turkey (mainly from Smyrna), while some 350,000 Turks were forced to leave Greece. It has remained the basis of Graeco-Turkish tensions ever since.