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08/09/2016

One Hundred Years of geopolitics in the Middle East : the Sykes-Picot agreement.- Francisco J. Fuentes Gil & Joaquín M. Pellicer Balsalobre

A century after the signature of Sykes-Picot Agreement, many researchers had jumped on the bandwagon of the latest fashion, blaming it as the only responsible of the current maelstrom in the Middle East. The threat of disintegration of major Arab states from Iraq and Syria to Libya could mean that the agreement has failed and, in this region, a new border reconfiguration is coming. One hundred years later, it is necessary to take some kind of perspective about how policy decisions, international deals and personal relations took part in such complex process, after First World War. Lately, the idea that the artificial creation of states and boundaries by France and Britain has rendered the region unstable and prone to violence, it has become a mantra. The present document aims to analyse the motivation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and all subsequent treaties, and their influence in the actual situation of the region. The fascination for remapping the Middle East using cartographic imagination is considered as a more dangerous new edition of possible former mistakes.

Author: Francisco Javier Fuentes Gil & Joaquín M. Pellicer Balsalobre.

THIS DOCUMENT IS ONLY AVAILABLE IN SPANISH LANGUAGE.

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