Erdogan says treaty that formed modern Turkey presented as though it were a victory

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has criticized those that signed the Lausanne Treaty in 1923 that largely gave Turkey its present borders instead of the rump state envisioned in the Treaty of Sèvres, saying some had tried to present Lausanne as a victory, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

“July 15 is the second War of Independence for the Turkish nation. Let us know it like that. They [threatened] us with Sèvres in 1920 and persuaded us to [accept] Lausanne in 1923. Some tried to deceive us by presenting Lausanne as victory. At Lausanne, we gave away the [now-Greek] islands that you could shout across to,” Erdoğan said Sept. 29 at his 27th gathering with village chiefs in Ankara.

“We are still struggling about what the continental shelf will be, and what will be in the air and the land. The reason for this is those who sat at the table for that treaty. Those who sat there did not do [us] justice, and we are reaping those troubles right now. If this coup had succeeded, they would have given us a treaty that would have made us long for Sèvres,” he said.

Signed on July 24, 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed by İsmet İnönü, who later succeeded Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as president, is regarded as the final treaty concluding World War I that secured the foundation of the modern Republic of Turkey after the War of Independence against the occupying forces of Britain, France, Italy and Greece. The treaty recognized the boundaries of Turkey as well as the conditions under which non-Muslim minorities would live in the new republic.