What Made Us Forget the Treaty of Sevres?

Did you know that Woodrow Wilson’s Arbitral Award of territorial integrity of Armenia was mandatory for all parties regardless of their approval? Moreover, the statute of limitations is inapplicable to it.

But how would it be executed now?

-The present Republic of Armenia (since 1991) is the legal successor of the First Republic of Armenia (1918-1920).

-The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (Armenian SSR, 1920-1991) was only a part of the USSR and was not recognized as a sovereign state by any country in the world.

-During the existence of USSR, the de facto border between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey was only a part of the border between the USSR and Turkey and cannot be considered valid and lawful.

– The boundaries of the First Republic of Armenia should be the legal de jure border between the current Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey.

The boundaries of the First Republic of Armenia were proposed by the President of the United States Woodrow Wilson (Arbitral Award, November 22, 1920) and recognized by many states – the US, the UK, France, Italy, Japan, and Turkey (The Treaty of Sevres, August 10, 1920).

– In November 1920, the Turkish and Russian-Bolshevik invasions in Armenia interrupted the sovereignty of the First Republic of Armenia and the normal process of carrying out the state border demarcation between Armenia and Turkey.

Why the centennial silence?

-No one could think or talk about this problem under the Soviet rule (1920-1991).

-Only a detailed analysis of the US archives (Ara Papian’s study of more than 1000 pages, including confidential documents) over the past few years allowed to bring the problem back to life.

The aforementioned states must compel Turkey to recognize the legally approved border and demilitarize the occupied lands of Western Armenia (the so-called “Eastern Anatolia”), which belong to the Republic of Armenia under the Arbitral Award of US President Woodrow Wilson.

The policy of Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide is mainly aimed at neutralizing the Armenian diaspora, so that it focuses all its efforts on proving the Genocide and gets distracted from the legal side of the presented issue.