POWER POLITICS: Semitic Friends

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> But the Arab world's biggest loss last week took place at Ankara, capital of Turkey, where the French and the Turks signed a treaty ceding to Turkey the Republic of Hatay. This 1,500-square-mile region, situated just south of the big bulge of Turkish Asia Minor, was known until last September as the Sanjak of Alexandretta. It was geographically a part of Syria, held in mandate by France, and hence an integral part of that great Empire which Pan-Arab leaders envision creating some day. One of its cities is Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas taught and Ben Hur raced his chariot. But the most important city of Hatay is Alexandretta, terminus of the never completed Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway, one of the best ports of the Levantine Coast, the natural sea outlet for Syria and for the upper Euphrates Valley of Iraq.

Hatay is a melting pot of Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Alaouites, Greeks, Circassians and Turks. Of these, the Turks are most numerous, constituting 40% of the population. Taking a leaf from Führer Hitler's book and even improving on his methods, the Turks first asked for (and got) minority rights for their nationals in Hatay, next autonomy for the region, next "independence," with Turkish and French troops jointly "keeping order." At one time the late President Kamal Atatürk backed up his demands by massing troops along the Syrian border. At another time a League of Nations plebiscite was to be held in the district, but when most of the non-Turks banded together and it became obvious that the Turks could not win, the obliging French invited the League Commission to leave.

When early this spring France and Britain began to form their Stop Hitler bloc, they wanted an alliance with Turkey. Quickly the Turks signed up with Britain, but to join France they asked a price: out & out annexation of Hatay.

Last week the French paid the price, and as Turkish Foreign Minister Sukru Saracoglu and French Ambassador Rene Massigli signed Hatay away at Ankara, at Paris French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and Turkish Ambassador Suad Davaz initiated a treaty of mutual assistance. Out of the Hatay deal France was able to wangle only a few concessions: minorities who want to leave the territory within 18 months will be able to do so with all their goods and cattle; the northern slopes of Jebel Akra, a mountainous part of Hatay largely populated by Armenians, will go to adjacent Syria. To go to Turkey, however, is the mountain of Musa Dagh, scene of the 1935 best-seller Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Last week the tough Armenians who underwent the siege of 1915 there served notice on the French Chamber of Deputies that they would again resist a Turkish occupation.

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