Askandaroun Sanjak and the International Court of Justice

French circles following up on the issue of the Syrian - Turkish disputes recommended that Ankara and its military leadership not take up Syrian-Turkish border demarcation to extract an official Syrian recognition of the secession of the Askandaroun Sanjak region to Turkey.

The Paris-based weekly al-Muharrir News said in a special report from Paris that these circles stressed to Ankara that embarrassing Syria in this regard may push it to ask for debating the dispute before the International Court of Justice in the Hague to discuss the legitimacy and legality of the French mandate of authority over Syria in handing the Sanjak over to Turkey.

The French circles said that submitting the dispute to the International Court of Justice is very sensitive because there is nothing in international law that would permit the mandate country (France) to separate a geographical area of the mandated country (Syria) to give it as an offer to another country, even if there is a dispute over the ceded area.

The weekly added that Paris has warned Ankara that it will find itself obliged to provide all the documents which are kept at the French Foreign Ministry to the International Court of Justice, which, they said, prove the Syrian point of view.

Paris also recommended that Ankara limit its disputes with Syria to two points: the Kurds and water, issues that can be negotiated upon and settled peacefully to serve the national interests of the two countries.