On June 23, 1939, Turkish troops entered the Alexandretta Sanjak in northwestern Syria. The entire current territory of Syria after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was at that time under the French mandate from the League of Nations, which meant only a somewhat veiled colonial dependence. However, the region is 4,700 sq. km, where only a third of the population were Turks, was captured practically without any resistance. France simply surrendered, and most likely "sold" Alexandretta to the Turks.
By the fall of 1940, Armenians, Arabs, French, Kurds, Greeks, Druze were deported or emigrated from Sanjak. Thus, Turkey, with the "supply" of Great Britain, received a strategic region in the Mediterranean, to the ports of which (Iskenderun, Dortiel) and to the nearby ports of Ceyhan and Yumurtalik, high-capacity oil pipelines were laid in the 1970s - early 2000s, respectively, from Iraqi Kurdistan, from the Syrian North-East and from the former Soviet Azerbaijan. By the way, Turkey at the end of the 30s also claimed the main Syrian port - Latakia, but then it was "dissuaded" …
Subsequently, not only Hafez Assad, but also other Arab leaders - Muammar Gaddafi, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein - made repeated calls to "free Alexandretta". According to French sources (2018), the Syrian "non-Islamist" opposition blames the current leadership of Syria, among other things, for refusing to return the region. By the way, there is also a considerable, perhaps the main "merit" of the Soviet leadership in this, which has always dissuaded Damascus from resuscitating this issue.
However, this, of course, was primarily due to the pragmatic course of Moscow towards Turkey in the post-Stalin period. In addition, we must not forget that the USSR was the first country to recognize the independent Turkish Republic. In addition, even the Stalinist leadership considered it necessary to maintain loyalty to Turkey, which did not enter World War II on the side of Germany.
Very characteristic in this sense were such measures on the part of Moscow as the sudden cessation of support for the Turkish Communist Party and Kurdish partisans, or outright distancing from foreign groups of Armenian avengers for the genocide of 1915-21. It should be recalled that the main of them, the "Secret Armenian Army" ASALA ", is still operating, and in Turkey, of course, it is recognized as terrorist.
Let us cite in this connection the point of view of the Russian historian-Arabist A. V. Suleimenova:
"Throughout the 20th century, one of the main problems in Turkish-Syrian relations was the annexation of the Alexandretta Sandjak by Turkey in 1939. It was carried out with the support of France, which wanted, thereby, to prevent Turkey from joining an alliance with Germany and Italy."
Who will settle old scores
It should be recalled that already in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Syrian leadership repeatedly stated that France arbitrarily disposed of a part of Syrian territory, so either Paris must reconsider this decision, or Syria will independently seek reunification with this region. But Paris, with the support of London and Washington, and then Moscow, managed to "muffle" such plans of Damascus.
"… the problem," notes A. Suleimenov, "remains relevant today, since Syria de jure did not recognize the sanjak for Turkey. Until the mid-60s, and especially during the period when Syria was still part of the notorious UAR, it regularly demanded compensation from France for the seizure of this region in favor of Turkey."
Even on the latest Syrian maps, the territory of Alexandretta (since 1940 it has been the province of Hatay) is painted in the same color with the rest of the territory of the SAR, and the current Syrian-Turkish border is designated here as a temporary one. However, over the past decades, Syria has avoided openly raising the question of the need for an early settlement of this problem with Turkey. For since mid-1967, when Israel defeated the Arabs in the Six Day War, the even more important issue of the return of the Golan Heights has been on the country's agenda.
After Recep Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad exchanged visits in 2004, tensions around this issue have eased. The Syrian government announced in 2005 that it had no claims to Turkish sovereignty in this area. But this, despite the repeated proposals of Ankara, is still not legally enshrined in any way.
The chronology of the problem, in short, is as follows: in the summer of 1936, Ankara, referring to the imminent termination of the French mandate in Syria, made claims for the border sandjak of Alexandretta. Great Britain backed up Turkish claims in an effort to weaken France's position in the region and soon achieved this. In the face of "friendship" not only between Berlin, but also between London and Ankara against Paris, the French leadership agreed to negotiations. And in the fall of 1938, Turkey introduces its troops into the province of Hatay, and with the consent of France.
Indeed, we have before us - the Mediterranean analogue of the "solution" of the Sudeten question by the rejection of the Czechoslovak borderlands in favor of Germany. Or maybe the point is that Europe at that time was too busy with the problems of the German Anschluss and annexation. But let's continue. On May 21, 1939, a mutual assistance agreement was signed between Great Britain, France and Turkey without a validity period. But Turkey did not fulfill its obligations under the treaty, declaring neutrality during the Second World War (and only on February 23, 1945, it entered the war against Germany, obviously in order to "catch up" with full membership in the UN).
Sold half-colony
On June 23, 1939, a Turkish-French agreement was finally signed on the transfer of the aforementioned region to French Syria to Turkey. And already in 1940, Turkey initiated negotiations with Iraq on the possibility of building an oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Alexandretta, and the project was immediately supported by Germany and Italy.
The allies in the anti-Comintern pact did not hide their interest in finally getting rid of the decisive role of London and Paris in the transit of Middle Eastern oil through the ports of British Palestine and the French Levant. In addition, we must not forget that by that time the Second World War was already underway, on the western front it was “strange”, but quite real on a strategic scale.
However, the "pro-British" Prime Minister of Iraq Nuri Said reasonably suspected of the project, among other things, a new attempt by Ankara to subjugate or even tear away Iraqi Kurdistan from Baghdad. And negotiations, having barely begun, were interrupted. Later, the new (after 1958) Iraqi authorities agreed to the project, as they were interested in the growth of Iraqi oil exports and in establishing relations with Turkey. This, incidentally, was facilitated primarily by its revenues from the transit of North Iraqi oil. Isn't that so, the notorious "Turkish Stream" immediately comes to mind.
So far there is no reason to believe that B. Assad's government will return - at least in foreign policy propaganda - to the issue of Khatai. But this is quite possible in the event of more active actions by Turkey to separate the "oil transit" Syrian North. In any case, the Hatay region literally hangs over the main Syrian port of Latakia, and in the event of a sharp aggravation of Syrian-Turkish relations, Latakia may well be blocked.
It remains to recall that back in 1957, a Turkish military strike was planned against Latakia from nearby Hatay, but the Soviet leadership threatened Ankara with "inevitable consequences" in the event of its aggression against Syria. Meanwhile, two decades earlier, in 1936, Ankara included in its claims to Syria the port of Latakia with the adjacent area adjacent to the Alexandretta sanjak. Although in London and Paris then they were able to reason with Ankara. But is it forever?..
