(Australian Strategic Policy Institute) David Millar - The boundaries of Syria were set following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The lines on the map were drawn by Mark Sykes and Georges Picot in a secret agreement in 1916, known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement. But lines on maps did not match the population already present. The lines drawn on the map have little meaning for the northern Sunni, the eastern Shia, the Druze to the south or the Alawite on the Mediterranean coast. There simply is no great purpose in a nation called Syria within borders drawn by European diplomats at the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
2024-12-10 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive