Word: sanjak
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Turkish troops were scheduled this week to march peacefully over the southern border of Turkey into the 10,000-square-mile Sanjak (province) of Alexandretta, an autonomous district of French-mandated, soon-to-be-independent Syria. Sent back to Geneva on the demand of Turkey, at the request of France, was the League of Nations Commission which had been invited to supervise the election of a legislature which, if held, would have amounted to a plebiscite for Turkish or Syrian rule...
...Ankara, Turkey's capital, bespectacled, chubby, methodical Premier Jelal Bayar shouted to the one-party Grand National Assembly that Hatay-the name for the Sanjak affected by the Turks after the Hittite regime that ruled there over 3,000 years ago-"must be Turkish-ruled." In Syria's capital, Damascus, Arab leaders called for a policy of noncooperation with France. Throughout much of the Arab world - from Asia Minor to Aden, from Tigris to Nile - there was dismay over this latest of a long list of betrayals by the Big Powers. For Turkey, former master of the Arabs...
...detachment of 2,500 Turkish troops was to enter the Sanjak by agreement with France. There they were to "help" an equal number of French troops to "maintain order" when the often postponed elections are finally held. The date is not set yet. According to Arab sympathizers, the reason the League of Nations Commission's elections were not held was that France had secretly promised Turkey that at least 22 of the Sanjak's 40 assembly seats would go to Turks. Since Turks number no more than 40% of the population, since many Sanjak Turks dislike Dictator Kamal...
...Paris last week, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and Turkish Ambassador Suad Davaz signed an accord on the long-smoldering Sanjak question. For France the accord represented a diplomatic rout, compensated only by the fact that by appeasing Turkey, France has weaned President-Dictator Kamal Atatürk further away from Germany. For Turkey it was a victory for strong-man policies. For Syria, occupation of the Sanjak by Turkish troops means a loss of her one good harbor at Alexandretta. The Sanjak cannot legally become Turkish without League of Nations sanction, but with Turkish troops there it will...
...long as a great European power like France ruled over Syria, President-Dictator Kamal Atatikk ("Father of the Turks") bothered little over his Sanjak children. Two years ago, however, France agreed to relinquish her mandate in 1939, decided to split Syria into two parts (Syria and Lebanon), left the Sanjak to be governed from Damascus by Syrian "Arabs. For the Father of the Turks, the spectacle of a petty Arab nation, formerly a subject people, ruling over their oldtime Turkish masters was too much. He protested to France and the League. Twice he moved his troops to the border...