A LITERATURE REVIEW ABOUT THE HATAY ISSUE (1939)

Abstract

Hatay province, which was within the borders delineated by the Misak-ı Millî (National Pact) but outside these borders according to the Ankara Treaty and Treaty of Lausanne, had been one of the vital foreign policy issue of Turkey from the year 1923 along with the Mosul problem. Using the developments of the Second World War and that period in its favor, Turkey succeeded in resolving the Hatay Issue through international law and diplomacy.

Although the Hatay Issue represented a very important diplomatic victory in Turkish political life during the early Republican period, the number of studies on this issue is observed to be quite limited. When these studies are examined, it is observed that the majority of them generally do not address the issue from a historical perspective, but only provide information about the development and resolution of the issue. Information on this subject is generally found as a short section in indirect sources such as Turkish Political History, Political Life in Turkey, and Turkish Foreign Policy. Moreover, the fact that there are only 1 doctoral thesis and 9 master’s theses on this subject in Turkey indicates that scientific research on this subject is insufficient. When the articles written on this subject are examined, it is observed that many authors benefit from secondary sources. In some other studies, the authors examined Turkey-France relations from a historical point of view, and devoted a short chapter to the Hatay Issue. Consequently, no original article on the Hatay issue was encountered in the literature. Although this study is a literature critique on the Hatay Issue (1939), the main purpose of the study is to present the similarities and differencesof the perspectives of basic sources concerning the Hatay Issue.