Hatay

A district of French Syria

After the First World War the district of Alexandretta, with its port on the Gulf of İskenderun, became part of the French League of Nations mandate for Syria.^[5] A Franco-Turkish agreement of 20 October 1921 promised it a special, autonomous regime within Syria.^[3] Its population was mixed: in 1936 the French estimated that 39 percent were Turks, 28 percent Alawite Arabs, 11 percent Armenians, 10 percent Sunni Arabs and 8 percent other Christians.^[5]

In 1936, as France promised Syria independence, Turkey began to press for the region’s “reunification” with Turkey, citing its large Turkish-speaking community.^[2][3] In December 1937 Turkey denounced its friendship treaty with Syria, and France sent a mission to Ankara. By July 1938 the two agreed to supervise elections in the district with 2,500 troops each, and France arranged that 22 of the 40 seats in the new assembly would go to Turks.^[5]

The handover

A Franco-Turkish commission marked the line between Syria and the district in 1938. Using its power as the mandatory for Syria, France transferred the district to Turkey on 23 July 1939, and it became the Turkish province of Hatay.^[3] Turkey made Antioch (Antakya) its capital.^[1]

The handover came with a Franco-Turkish treaty of friendship on the eve of the Second World War. France defended it before the League of Nations as necessary to avoid a Turkish attack on Syria; Emma Lundgren Jörum of Carnegie calls it a blunt violation of the Treaty of Lausanne and of the mandate.^[2] There were heavy protests in Syria, which was still seeking its own independence.^[2]

Never recognised, rarely raised

After independence Syria refused to recognise the border, and its official maps went on showing Hatay as Syrian. But governments discouraged public debate and raised the issue only in moments of tension with Turkey, such as the union with Egypt in 1958–61 and the crisis of 1998.^[2]

In the 2000s, as relations warmed, the two countries planned a free-trade area and a shared Friendship Dam on the Orontes, which flows from Syria into Hatay. By agreeing to national jurisdiction on either side of the dam, Syria in effect recognised Turkish sovereignty, but work stopped weeks after the groundbreaking in February 2011, when the Syrian uprising began.^[2] Pro-government Syrian media revived the claim in 2012–13, while the Syrian opposition’s schoolbooks dropped Hatay from maps; Jörum concludes that Syria’s quiet view since 1939 has been that Hatay was unjustly taken but is now Turkish.^[2]

The earthquake

On 6 February 2023 two earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.7 struck near the Turkey–Syria border. Nearly 46,000 people died in Turkey, and Hatay was the worst-hit province, with about 21,900 deaths; Antakya was heavily damaged.^[4]