Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/347

 special agent of the French Government, and Yussuf Kemal Bey, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of the Grand National Assembly. This treaty formally brought to an end the state of war between the two countries, provided for the repatriation of all prisoners, defined new boundaries between Turkey and Syria, and awarded valuable economic privileges to French capitalists. It obligated the French Government "to make every effort to settle in a spirit of cordial agreement all questions relating to the independence and sovereignty of Turkey."[19]

The Bagdad Railway was given a great deal of consideration in the Angora Treaty. The Turks wanted possession of the line because of its great political and strategic value; French capitalists sought full recognition of their previous investments in the railway, together with a controlling interest in its operation. A solution was reached which fully satisfied both Turkish Nationalists and French imperialists. The Turco-Syrian boundary was so "rectified" that the Bagdad Railway from Haidar Pasha to Nisibin was to lie within Turkish territory, whereas formerly the sections from the Cilician Gates to Nisibin lay within the French mandate for Cilicia and Syria.[20] In return for these territorial readjustments the Turkish Government assigned to a French group (to be nominated by the French Government) the ''Deutsche Bank's'' concession for those sections of the railway, including branches, between Bozanti and Nisibin, "together with all the rights, privileges, and advantages attached to that concession." The Government of the Grand National Assembly, furthermore, declared itself "ready to examine in the most favorable spirit all other desires that may be expressed by French groups relative to mine, railway, harbor and river concessions, on condition that such desires shall conform to the reciprocal interest of