The 'Other' Lausanne Treaty of Lausanne: The American Public and Offical Debate on Turkish-American Relations

Özet

On August 6, 1923 Joseph Grew, the American representative at theLausanne Conference, and İsmet Pasha, the Foreign Minister of thenationalist government of Ankara, signed a Treaty of Amity and Commercein Lausanne, Switzerland. The "other" Treaty of Lausanne was meant toestablish diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States andthe new Turkish Government. Replacing agreements between America andthe Ottoman Empire, which were severed when the United States enteredWorld War I in 1917, this new treaty also signified the United States'recognition of the independence and sovereignty of the new Turkish state.In Turkey, the treaty with the United States was seen as an extensionof the Lausanne Treaty, normalizing relations between the new TurkishGovernment and the European Powers. But in the United States, the treatyled to an official and public controversy which delayed its ratification, andresulted in its rejection in 1927 by the United States Senate. Stili, the debatesurrounding the treaty continued, lasting seven year from its signing in 1923until 1930 when the Senate finally accepted another, yet virtually identical,treaty with the Turkish Republic.