Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/248

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The rest of the Lausanne Conference was a rout. The military victory which Ismet Pasha had won over the Greeks at Smyrna, he duplicated as a diplomatic victory over the Allies at Lausanne. Having salvaged the Straits Convention from the wreck and having postponed the Mosul matter, Lord Curzon abandoned the unhappy scene on Feb. 4, 1923, leaving Sir Horace Rumbold to save what he could when the conference resumed on April 23. Ismet Pasha restricted himself as far as possible to a settlement of the political terms of peace, referring concessionaires to his Government at Angora, but it was not until July 17 that Sir Horace consented to sign peace without the Turkish Government's acquiescence in the claim of the so-called Turkish Petroleum Company upon the oil of the Mosul province. Excepting for further negotiation over Mosul, the political terms of peace between the Allies and Turkey were signed at Lausanne on July 24. Several of the economic issues of the peace, the most important of which is the question of the currency in which Turkey is to pay interest on its share of the Old Ottoman Public Debt, are still in process of negotiation.

On August 4, terms for the resumption of diplomatic relations between the United States and Turkey were signed at Lausanne. Relations had been severed on April 20, 1917, by the Enver Government at Constantinople and on May 5, 1923, Ismet Pasha had written Joseph C. Grew, American Minister to Switzerland, proposing negotiations looking toward the resumption of regular relations. Two Turco-American Treaties resulted, one a general treaty and the other an extradition treaty, the