Turkey's Foreign Relations from 1923-1939

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issue rested upon oil resources available in that region. At the time, neither Turkey nor Britain wanted to give up on Mosul. Britain decided to take the problem to a wider range of spectators, making the League of Nations aware of this quarrel. It is important to not that at the time Turkey wasn’t a member of the League. It was decided that Mosul should be a part of Iraq, some argue that this decision has been taken because of Britain influential place in the League of Nations. And in the year of 1926, an agreement was signed, Turkey gave up on her policy over Mosul. Two main reasons led to the signature of it, one was the conflicts going on in Eastern Turkey but the second one was Atatürk’s unwillingness to start a war against the United Kingdom since Turkey was getting out a freshly lost war of eleven years and thus was very weak.

Following this decision, Turkey became a member of the League of Nations in 1932. This decision was in some sense problematic because of Turkey’s diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. Indeed, Turkey did not wish to deteriorate her relations with the latter one and feared that by joining the League, it “betrayed” her ally. But in 1934, when the USSR joined the League of Nations, this was no longer an issue. But when faced with the Japanese, German and Italian aggressions and being unable to counter them, the UN proved to be inefficient in maintaining peace, Turkey decided it needed to widen its relations with the world to keep peace.

After that, in the 30’s the international arena was becoming more dangerous, and tensions were raising, Turkey judged it was time to be part of an alliance to insure peace. Turkey had priorities at the time, which were to revise Lausanne Treaty to make the best out of it for Turkey ( especially concerning straits and Eastern Thrace issues) but also about modernizing the army, and constituting an alliance with Britain and France without staining relations with the Soviet Union. Based on William Hale’s words, Turkey biggest concern was to make sure the same mistake of 1914 wasn’t reproduced, “by siding with Germany” because Turkey was aware that the allied powers would have the upper hand and thus Turkey wanted to be on the victorious side of the table.

Turkish foreign policy makers’ timing when bringing the issue to the agenda couldn’t be better. Turkish army was limited in Eastern Thrace, and left it with lack of security against Italy, thus Turkey’s sovereignty was limited. Afterwards, Britain realized that Turkish interests about straits and Eastern Thrace were also beneficial to the UK. In 1936, part states (Australia, Bulgaria, Greece, France, Japan, Romania, Yugoslavia, Turkey, UK and USSR) signed Monteux Treaty which revised the strait settlement previously mentioned in the Lausanne treaty. This treaty stated various conditions, for example, in war or at peace, Turkey would implement the rules concerning the straits. The take away message here is that Turkey obtained what she desired concerning the straits while using the opportunity of a worsening international environment.

Then, after 1933, Turkey became more interested in the developments occurring in Europe. Italian and German aggression let other powers to establish an alliance. As stated before, Turkey wanted to be on the allied powers’ side. Yet, Britain wasn’t pleased nor willing to undertake any decisions at the time. This was until German aggressions increased in 1939. Britain had no choice but to become willing to form an alliance between Turkey, France and Britain. At that point, Turkey was not to attack Germany, but to actually stay neutral in this conflict. Based on the agreement between Turkey and Britain, both were responsible for aid and assistance if either member of the alliance were to be attacked by an outsider.

After the declaration, Turkey’s biggest targets were to bring France into the alliance and integrate the Soviet Union’s wishes. Nevertheless, Turkish foreign policy makers had to solve the issue of Hatay with France to get her into the alliance. After Lausanne treaty, Hatay was a province left inside of the French-ruled Syria. When Syria became independent, Turkey decided to assert her objectives about Hatay, that it did not want to be a part of an independent state. In 1938, Hatay was declared as an independent state and in 1939 Hatay was annexed to Turkey. This let Turkish-Franco relations better but however, it led to bad Turkish-Syrian relations.

In 1939 Turkey, Britain and France entered into negotiation in politics, military and economical fronts. Germany wanted Turkey as an ally, but aggressive attitudes of Italy hindered this. Turkey’s other goal was to sign a non aggression pact with the Soviet Union. But, when Germany and the USSR signed a non aggression pact, it was a rude awakening for Turkey, because Turkey always wanted the Soviet Union to be on the side of the Allied powers. Alsoe, Turkey was afraid of tensions with the Soviet Union which was something to be avoided greatly.

In conclusion, Lausanne treaty had a great impact on Turkish Foreign policy. On most sides Turkey was satisfied with the agreements, except Mosul, straits and Hatay issues. The remained unresolved problems, mostly on an international level, were solved by peaceful means during this period of 1923-1939. In this period, one can say with no doubt that Turkey was finally accepted as a part of the European state system. Secondly, Turkey was looking after good relations with its neighbors and preserving peace in Balkans states, with the Balkan Pact for example, and in the Middle East with Saadabad Pact. Finally, Turkey always carried her foreign policy out according to Ataturk’s famous rhetoric “peace