Ottoman BMUN LXVII

The Treaty of Sevres marked the official partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and carries major implications for out committee. The Treaty was signed in the 1920 between the Allies and the Central Powers, and it resulted in the loss of all non-Turkish territory to the Allies. As a result of this treaty, many individuals in these non-Turkish territories lost their citizenship, and the Treaty was very humiliating for the former Ottoman Empire. While many sources state that the Armistice of Mudros is what initially led to the Turkish War of Independence, the Treaty of Sevres is what truly ignited hostilities among the Turkish community. The Turkish War of Independence was very successful from the perspective of the Turkish rebellion. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, and it officially marked the establishment of Turkey. Delegates should know that the events of the Treaty of Sevres and the events of the Treaty of Lausanne both occur at a later time in committee. Hence, delegate...

Assyrians are a population with a long and complicated history. Traditionally associated with Christianity, the term “Assyrian” is an ethnic national term that includes people from various Syriac churches (not to be confused with the Syrians of modern-day). They have historically been located in Northern Syria, Eastern Iran, and Southern Turkey: essentially the center of the Ottoman Empire as we know it in this committee. As early as the 5th century, there was already a division among the Syriac churches, between the “East Syrians,” which included primarily the Nestorians, but also the Uniate Brethren and the Chaldeans, and the “West Syrians” composed of members of the Jacobites Syrian Orthodox Church of Antich and Syrian Catholics. Despite these divisions, the two sides continued to interact on an intellectual basis throughout the centuries. Nationalism, or at least the concept of representing a “nation,” first prominent in the Nestorian community in the 1890s. Until that...

One of the big questions during the process of keeping the Ottoman Empire together is managing several of the demographic groups within the region. One such group in the Ottoman Empire was the Armenians, who have a deep historical ties to the eastern portion of the Ottoman Empire. The problem arose because Armenians were primarily Christian, due to which they faced widespread discrimination from both the Ottoman Empire themselves as well as neighboring groups like the Kurds. The key conflict revolving around the Armenians was the Russo-Turkish War in which Russia attempted to reclaim territory it has lost during the Crimean War, and helping support several of the ethnic groups in the Balkans attempting to break away from the Ottoman Empire. The Armenian groups hoped to utilize Russia’s successful invasion to gain more rights within the Ottoman empire. This was given in Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano, which put Russia’s withdrawal from the region on the condition that th...