Sèvres Syndrome

In Turkey, the Sèvres Syndrome (Turkish: Sevr Sendromu) is a popular belief that some outside forces, especially the West, "is conspiring to weaken and carve up Turkey." The term originates from the Treaty of Sèvres of the 1920s, which partitioned the Ottoman Empire between the Kurds, Armenia, Greece, Britain, France, and Italy, leaving a small unaffected area around Ankara under Turkish rule, however, it was never implemented due to the Turkish War of Independence. Turkish historian Taner Akçam describes this attitude as an ongoing perception that "there are forces which continually seek to disperse and destroy us, and it is necessary to defend the state against this danger."

Overview

Danish political scientist Dietrich Jung describes the terms as "the perception of being encircled by enemies attempting the destruction of the Turkish state," and asserts that it remains a significant determinant of Turkish foreign policy. The term has been used in the scope of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and accession of Turkey to the European Union in 1987 by Turkish nationalist circles.

According to Armenia's former foreign minister Alexander Arzumanyan there is an "irrational fear in Turkey regarding the Treaty of Sèvres, which unites liberals and radical [nationalists] alike".

History

According to Fatma Müge Göçek, the literature of Sèvres Syndrome highlights three development stages of the "syndrome":

• "the initial contemporaneous impact of the Sèvres Treaty on state and society in the form of fear and anxiety"
• "negotiation during the radical Westernization of the Turkish Republic which is spearheaded by the military and the RPP; internal and external enemies are defined during this stage"
• "the institutionalized syndrome becomes radicalized as ultra-nationalist parties try to systematically exclude such perceived enemies from the Turkish body politic"

Comparisons

In 2015 Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, compared the agreement between the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and the Turkish government in the scope of the Kurdish–Turkish peace process to the Treaty of Sèvres. Bahçeli claimed the agreement "will lead to the collapse of the Turkish Republic and has vowed to resist it."