On 24-07-1923, the countries that had won World War I and Turkey signed an agreement called the Lausanne Agreement in Lausanne, Switzerland. Signing the Lausanne agreement led to the abolition of the Siver agreement. This incident ended the Kurdish dream of establishing their own state at that time.
In order to discuss the Lausanne treaty, we need to take a look at World War I first. We also cannot talk about the Lausanne treaty if we do not mention the Siver agreement at first.

World War I

World War I, known as the Great War, was a world war that began on 28-07-1914 and ended on 11-11-1918. Many countries around the world got involved in this war and millions of people got killed or injured. The number of victims and lost ones was numerously the greatest number in history at that time.
World War I was one of the most significant events in human history and directly or indirectly played a role in determining the history of the 20th century. This war ended the reign of several kings and royal families in Europe such as Habsburg-Loren in Austria, Owen Tsoleren of the German Empire, Al-Osmani in the Ottoman Empire and Romanov in the Russian Empire.
Some of the reasons for World War I were: the confrontation of Austria and Russia in the Balkan Sea, the tension between Germany and France over Als, and Leren, German, and Britain economic and naval rivalry, the development of nationalism in Europe, storing a large number of military weapons in the European countries and …

Generally, World War I was the first building block in the ethnical genocide of the Kurds.

Siver Treaty

On 10-08-1920 (after World War I) the Siver Treaty which was a peace treaty among France, Britain, Italy, Japan, and the Allies was signed in France. At the time of signing this agreement a Kurdish delegation led by Sharif Pasha took part in the meeting. In this meeting, the participants talked about the autonomy right of the Kurds. It was the first time that in an official and formal meeting, the rights of Kurds would have been discussed.

A commission of the representatives of the superpowers presented a map of the Kurdish region’s autonomy with the right to get independence in a year. This made the Kurds wait for their independence although the Kurdish regions that were assigned to get independence did not match the Great Kurdistan regions completely it looked more like a part of independent Armenia.

The treaty included 13 parts and it referred to 433 paragraphs. The short version of those paragraphs of Siver Treaty about the Kurds is as follows:

Paragraph 62: the Istanbul Commission must formally appoint three representatives and they should prepare a map of the autonomy of those regions that Kurds are inhabiting in them for six months.

Paragraph 62: Turkish government must obey any decision that the commission shall make and these decisions must be fulfilled within three months.

Paragraph 64: Until a year after signing this Treaty, if the Kurds living in the Euphrates River and south Armenia do not separate from Turkey, they must declare it to the National Assembly of Nations, and since the Council has recognized that they can live independently thus the Turkish government should accept it and give up those areas. If the Kurdish people of Mosul wish to be independent, the coalition will not prevent them.

None of these conditions in the Treaty of Siver were implemented (for many reasons that cannot be explained in this article) and in a short time after this, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed.

The Treaty of #Lausanne#

On 24-07- 1923, the Allies, winning parties of World War I and Turkey signed a treaty in Lausanne, Switzerland. Lausanne treaty led to the cancelation of the Siver treaty and it ended the dream of the Kurds to establish a Kurdish State.
According to the Modina ceasefire between Britain and the nationalist Turks in 1922, the Siver treaty paragraphs needed to be renewed. The Allies and the Kemalists (as the non-rival representatives of Turkey) gathered in a meeting to reach a treaty on November 20 in Lausanne.
After that event, Mustafa Kemal rejected the Siver Treaty and all the conditions of that treaty. The Kemalists proclaimed a new republic under the ideology of Turkish-Kemalist nationalism.
On 24-07- 1923, the Lausanne treaty, or on the other words, the treaty of peace with Turkey was signed between Turkey and the Empires of Britain, France, and Italy, and the agreement of Japan, Greece, Romania, the State of Serb-Croatian- Slovenian and Czechoslovakia.
Generally, this treaty ended the rivalry that was going on at the beginning of World War I among The Ottoman Empire, France, Britain, Italy, and Greece and it completely obstructed the Kurds.
The Treaty of Lausanne included five sections and 143 paragraphs in which Turkey was declared an independent country. Paragraphs 37 to 45 of the Lausanne Treaty were among the most important parts since they were pointing out the rights of the minorities; for example, in paragraph 38 it is mentioned that the Turkish government pledges to protect the rights and lands and freedom of the Turkish citizens without considering their language, ethnicity, and religion. However, the treaty does not mention Kurds or Kurdistan, the Armenians, or even the Siver treaty, but it canceled the content of Siver treaty. In the Lausanne treaty, Kurds were not mentioned as a nation or even a minority in Turkey.
Although Britain tried to adapt Kurdish autonomy in the treaty there is no name of Kurdistan, Kurds, or protecting their rights in any part of the treaty.
After the Lausanne Treaty, in the constitution of 1924, being a Turk was considered the building block of being a citizen in Turkey and it meant that in this constitution any ethnicity other than being Turkish is denied.

Conclusion

Although the Treaty of Lausanne at that time ended the Kurdish people's dream of establishing a Kurdish state in the past one hundred years and after Siver and Lausanne treaties, the Kurds have always attempted to gain their rights. From Sheikh Saeed Piran's revolution to this very day, Kurdish revolutions in all four parts of Kurdistan in order to gain their basic and national rights continue and it will continue until they succeed completely.[1]