IBC Deputy Chairman and Secretary-General Participates in a Discussion Session Titled “Turkey’s Future Borders After 2023

IBC Deputy Chairman and Secretary-General Mr. Saad Naji participated in a discussion session organized by the Iraqi – European Centre for Development, a non-governmental organization based in Belgium, titled “Turkey’s Future Borders After 2023 & Expiration of the Validity of Lausanne Treaty, How Will Iraq, Turkey & Syria’s Map Be”.
During the discussion, Mr. Naji participated in the discussion by raising several points mainly; “I do not think that after a hundred years since the end of Lausanne Treaty anything would change on the ground in Iraq.

After the First World War (WW I), Austria, Germany and several empires signed treaties to return the lands they had occupied throughout history, Lausanne Treaty was one of them.

Would these treaties be reviewed? In reality this cannot happen.

Before Lausanne there was the Sykes-Picot Treaty in 1916, which divided the Middle East according to the occupation approach, was based on nationalism, language and the geopolitical history for groups of people coexisting on the same land.

Those who orchestrated Lausanne Treaty were inspired by the same idea, which lead to establishing and strengthening the national movements in the Middle East and Europe.

I think if Erdogan had any hope that by the expiration of Lausanne Treaty and the restoration of the empire with all its states to Turkey, he wouldn’t have intervened in Syria, northern Iraq and Libya, and maintained military troops in Qatar.

The issue relates to a secular state whose leader turned it into an Islamic one, with ambitions to revive its bygone empire, nothing more or less than that.”

Mr. Ethil Al-Nujaifi asks; “Most of the points you mentioned had a clear Turkish interest.. that is they have common interests for both countries.. for example secession.

Turkey would do everything to prevent the separation of the Kurdistan region from Iraq.. as for the borders.. it is not in Turkey’s interest to include troubled lands within its borders.. water.. it is possible to talk about joint agricultural investments that guarantee common interests as to the the flow of water.”

Mr. Saad Naji; “it is very true, but Erdogan the pragmatist is trying hard to bypass the strategies of the state that Ataturk had built on strong secular foundations, in which religion and secularism coexist harmoniously to reach a successful economic path and humane coexistence.”
A number of parliamentarian, economic and academic figures participated in the discussion.