Post - World War I talks at which Great Britain and France were awarded mandates over Middle East countries.
In April 1920, the victorious World War I allies, with the exception of the United States, met in San Remo, Italy. At the conference, Britain was awarded mandates over Palestine and Iraq, and France was awarded mandates over Syria and Lebanon. Technically,
a mandate held the territories in trusteeship for the League of Nations until the political systems of these territories were developed enough to warrant independence and admission to the League of Nations.
The San Remo Conference also discussed petroleum in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). France agreed to renounce its claims to the province of Mosul in return for a 25 percent share in the Turkish Petroleum Company. Italy was also promised access to this oil; but the issue of Mosul - whether it was to be an autonomous region of Kurds or a province of Iraq - was not decided until 1926, when it was officially incorporated into Faisal I ibn Hussein's new kingdom of Iraq.
Bibliography
Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, andPower. New York: Simon and Schuster. New York, 1991.
— ZACHARY KARABELL
