Sykes-Picot Agreement
The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 16 May 1916 was a secret understanding between the governments of Britain and France defining their respective areas of post-World War I influence and control in the Middle East.
Britain was allocated control of areas roughly comprising Jordan, Iraq and a small area around Haifa. France was allocated control of South-eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The controlling powers were left free to decide on state boundaries within these areas.
The area which subsequently came to be called Palestine was for international administration pending consultations with Russia and other powers. This area, subject to significant subsequent controversy, had the following borders:
- Southern: approximately mid way between Balah and Gaza, eastwards to the Dead Sea in a horizontal line, passing north of Beersheba and south of Hebron.
- Eastern: starting at the Dead Sea in the south it proceeded roughtly due north along the river Jordan to Lake Tiberius and a few miles north of the lake.
- Northern: a line approximately west-northwest from the area just north of Lake Tiberius, passing barely south of Tzfat to met the sea approximately mid way between Haifa and Tyre.
- Western: the Meditteranean Sea.
This agreement is viewed by many as conflicting with the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence of 1915-1916. The conflicting agreements are the result of changing progress during the war, switching in the earlier correspondence from needing Arab help to subsequently trying to enlist the help of Jews in the US in getting the US to join the First World War, in conjunction with the Balfour Declaration, 1917. Attempts to resolve the conflict were made at the San Remo conference and in the Churchill White Paper, 1922, which stated the British position that Palestine was part of the excluded areas of "Syria lying to the west of the District of Damascus".
The agreement's principal terms were reaffirmed by the inter-Allied San Remo conference of 19-26 April 1920 and the ratification of the resulting League of Nations mandates by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922.
