Enclaves are a common human geography phenomenon, which refers to areas that belong to a country but are not adjacent to the mainland of the place. Alaska in the United States and Kaliningrad Oblast in Russia are typical enclaves.
Most of the world's enclaves are lands of a residential nature, which is not fundamentally different from the country itself. But Turkey's enclave in Syria, the Suleiman Shah Mausoleum, turned out to be a cemetery.
▲ Suleiman Shah Mausoleum
Most enclaves are relatively fixed in location. But under Article IX of the Treaty of Ankara, signed in 1921 between Turkey and France (the mandated ruler of Syria), Turkey has the right to relocate the location of the cemetery. Moving there is turkey territory.
Suleiman Shah Ling has been relocated twice (in 1973 and 2015). But no matter which migration, it is within Syria.
▲ The location of the Historical Suleiman Shah Mausoleum
So why does Turkey have a cemetery enclave in Syria, and why has the enclave undergone so many migrations?
First, the Ottoman Empire occupies Syria
The area of the Suleiman Shah Mausoleum is smaller than that of the Vatican (0.44 square kilometers in the Vatican), and the owner of the cemetery, Suleiman Shah, as the glory of Turkey, the grandfather of ottoman founder Ottoman I, is highly respected by the Turks.
▲ Suleiman Shah's film and television image
The ancestors of the Turks are thought to have been Turkic peoples who once lived in Central Asia. The ancestors of the Syrians were Arabs.
In the 6th century AD, the Turks established Turkic khaganates in the Mongolian plateau and Central Asia. Later, under the blows of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Turkic Khaganate collapsed. Large numbers of Turks began to migrate westward.
▲ The Empire that the Turks once established
In the process of westward migration, the Seljuk Turks of the Turkic tribes converted to Islam in contact with the Arabs.
In the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks moved to the peninsula of Asia Minor and established their own state there, the Sultanate of Roma.
▲ Sultanate of Roma
Since its establishment, the Sultanate of Roma has faced a situation of internal and external troubles. Nominally the Sultanate of Roma was a unified form of government, but in fact it was dominated by the major nobles. Among them, the Ottoman family of the Oghuz was the most powerful, controlling the eastern part of the peninsula.
Externally, the Sultanate of Roma was constantly facing war from the Christian Crusaders of Europe. In the 13th century AD, Christian armies invaded the ottoman territory, and the Ottomans and crusaders fought a war in the Euphrates River Valley.
As the head of the family, Suleiman Shah led his troops to the forefront, resisting the crusader attacks again and again.
The Crusaders fought against the Muslims
Legend has it that in 1236, the ottoman army and the Crusaders fought in the Euphrates River Valley. In pursuit of the enemy, Suleiman Shah and his companions accidentally fell into the Euphrates River and drowned.
▲ Suleiman Shah was originally buried in Jaber Castle
After Suleiman Shah's body was recovered, it was buried in the place where he was sacrificed. The Ottoman forces defeated the Crusaders in the war and held their territory. His people built a cemetery for him at the site of his sacrifice, named Jaber Castle.
Map of the Euphrates River
In 1299, Suleiman Shah's grandson, Osman I, took advantage of the civil strife in the Sultanate of Roma to declare independence and establish a political power on the peninsula of Asia Minor, the "Ottoman Empire".
▲ Ottoman I, grandson of Suleiman Shah, founder of the Ottoman Empire
Since then, the heirs of the Ottoman family have undergone a series of military reforms and built a powerful army, laying the foundation for the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1453, the Islamic Ottoman Empire destroyed the Eastern Roman Empire. Subsequently, the Ottoman Empire marched north and occupied almost all of the Balkan Peninsula. It shocked Europe, the stronghold of Christianity.
In 1453, the Ottoman Empire occupied Constantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire collapsed
In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire occupied the territories of Arabia and North Africa, becoming an empire spanning three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.
Suleiman Shah is regarded as the founder of the empire and occupies an important position in the hearts of successive sultans of the empire. In order to show respect for Suleiman Shah, successive sultans have sent people to repair Suleiman Shah's mausoleum many times.
▲ The Ottoman Empire, at its peak in 1683, spanned three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa
2. Turkish enclaves
At the end of the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire gradually declined. Britain, France, and Italy seized part of the Ottoman Empire's African territory.
Russia launched many Russo-Turkish wars, which not only seized Ottoman territory, but also encouraged European countries to become independent from the Ottomans. Ottoman territory shrank considerably.
Therefore, the contradictions between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, Britain, France, and Italy were very acute.
After many Russo-Turkish and Italian-Turkish wars, in 1913, only Asia and a small part of Europe were left in the Ottoman Empire
Because of Russia's expansion in the Balkans, the contradictions between Germany and Austria-Hungary were sharp. As a result, the Ottoman Empire joined the Allied forces, dominated by Germany and Austria, in World War I.
However, the First World War ended with the defeat of the Allies, mainly Germany and Austria. The defeated Ottoman Empire was severely punished. In 1920, the Ottoman Sultan and the Allies signed the Treaty of Sèvres.
Treaty of Sèvres, a territory lost by the Ottoman Empire
According to the treaty, the Ottoman Empire entrusted the region of Western Asia (mainly the area where Arabs lived) to Britain and France. Among them, the area, including the Suleiman Shah Mausoleum, was allocated to the territory of Syria under french mandate.
In addition to the Mandated Rule of the Arab Regions by Britain and France, the lands inhabited by the Turks would also be occupied by the Greeks. Turkey is in danger of extinction.
The mandate of England and France
Mustafa Kemal, a junior officer who was not willing to sign the Humiliating Treaty, led an army to overthrow The Sultanate and establish the Republic of Turkey. At the same time, Mustafa Kemal led an army to fight the Greek army. In September 1921, Turkey defeated the Greek army at the Battle of the Sakarya River.
Turkish and Greek armies fought
The victory of the Turkish army led France to take the lead in announcing the abrogation of the Treaty of Sèvres and renewing negotiations with Turkey. For Turkey, the important task of their negotiations is to establish the border between Turkey and French Syria with France, especially with regard to the ownership of the Suleiman Shah Mausoleum.
Suleiman Shah is a national hero in the hearts of turks. On October 20, 1921, France and Turkey signed the Treaty of Ankara, in which Turkey recognized French sovereignty over Syria, but also made adjustments in favor of Turkey.
▲ Version of the Treaty of Ankara
Article IX of the Treaty of Ankara provides for the attribution of the mausoleum of Suleiman Shah in French Syria. The area where suleiman Shah Ling is located, surrounded by predominantly Arabs, has been assigned to French Syria.
France agreed to recognize Turkish sovereignty over suleiman shah in the form of an enclave. At the same time, it is stipulated that turkey can relocate the location of the cemetery according to the actual situation.
After settling the issue with France over the Mausoleum of the Shah of Suleiman, Turkey began negotiations with the other Allies. In 1923, after several rounds of negotiations, Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne with other Allies such as Britain and Italy, replacing the previous Treaty of Sèvres.
▲ Turkish territory established after the Treaty of Lausanne
According to the newly signed Treaty of Lausanne, although Turkey lost the land under the Mandate of Britain and France, Turkey and Greece exchanged them for the Turkish Strait and the European territory of Thrace through population exchange, laying the foundation for the territory of today's Turkey.
The Treaty of Ankara, signed by Turkey and France, is also considered part of the Treaty of Lausanne.
▲ Suleiman Shah Mausoleum
3. The Enclave of Turkey
The border between Turkey and French Syria lasted until World War II. In World War II, Turkey learned the lesson of blindly taking sides in World War I and almost destroyed the country, and remained neutral in the war.
In 1940, France was occupied by Germany. In 1943, Syria took advantage of the French occupation by Germany to declare its own government, and Syria took the first step towards independence.
After World War II, Syria became independent from France. Post-independence Syria inherited territory from the French period and recognized the continued validity of the Ankara Treaty signed by France and Turkey. The Suleiman Shah Mausoleum remains in Syria. Turkey can still garrison troops here.
▲ Turkish tomb guards at suleiman Shah Mausoleum
Post-independence Syria still faces serious problems. The domestic religious (sectarian) and ethnic contradictions are complex, and the situation in Syria is very unstable. It was not until 1966, when Hafez Al-Assad took power through a coup d'état, that the situation in Syria was relatively stable.
Hafez Al-Assad
The majority of the population in Syria is Sunni in Islam, but the Assad family believes in the Shiite Alawites. Sectarian tensions have severely challenged Assad's position.
In order to stabilize the regime, in 1968, in order to develop agricultural irrigation and power generation in Syria, Syria built the Tabuka Dam in the upper Euphrates region with soviet assistance.
Syria's construction of the dam has caused strong unrest in Turkey. Because after the dam is formed, Lake Assad will form in the catchment area of the upper reaches of the river, and the area where the cemetery is located is easily submerged by the rising water level.
▲ Tabuka Dam
Turkey has expressed dissatisfaction and protest against the construction of dams in Syria. A diplomatic crisis broke out between Turkey and Syria, and they almost met each other.
But the main enemy of Syria and the Arab world at this time was Israel. In order to prevent a two-sided attack between Israel and Turkey, Syria and Turkey reached an agreement in which the two sides agreed to relocate the address of the mausoleum to a new location 85 kilometers away from the original site.
The new cemetery is located on a high ground in the Sarin region of Aleppo Province, Syria, 27 km from the Turkish border. The cemetery completed its first relocation.
▲ The location of the Suleiman Shah Mausoleum for the first relocation
Turkey still gained the right to raise the flag and garrison troops at the mausoleum. In 2003, Syria and Turkey signed an agreement on the second cemetery, which gave Turks the right of passage through Syria with passports to enter the cemetery, so that Turkey could send people to repair and maintain the cemetery.
▲ Suleiman Shah Mausoleum in 2008
Between 2006 and 2010, 60 percent of Syria's land was plagued by drought. The second generation of the Assad family, Bashar, has failed to handle the crisis, making the contradictions in Syria increasingly acute.
In 2010, under the influence of the Arab Spring, a march demanding Bashar al-Assad's ouster erupted in Syria. Bashar's negative response led to the intensification of antagonistic emotions. In 2011, civil war broke out in Syria.
In the civil war, Turkey sided with the Syrian rebels. As the civil war expanded, Turkey's concerns about the Suleiman Shaaling became increasingly apparent. Since 2012, Turkey has entered Syrian territory by sending troops to protect the cemetery and interfered in Syria's internal affairs.
Among the rebels in Syria, the Wahhabis, who have always been ultra-conservative, formed the Islamic State (ISIS) group. For the Islamic State, both Syrian government forces and the secular state of Turkey are old enemies.
In 2014, the Islamic State occupied Syria's Aleppo province, heading for Turkey's Suleiman Shah Mausoleum.
▲ Isis (Islamic State) location, green for the 2014 occupation position, red for the 2015 position
Faced with the islamic State's aggressive situation, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said strongly: "Suleiman Shah is the ancestor of the Turks, and if someone attacks his mausoleum, it will be regarded as an invasion of Turkey." ”
According to the provisions of the Ankara Treaty, suleiman Shah Ling can be relocated according to the actual situation. The expansion of the war in Syria has given the Turkish army an excuse to interfere in Syria's internal affairs.
Turkish President Erdogan
On 21 February 2015, Turkey launched Operation Euphrates without informing the Syrian government. More than 500 troops and 39 tanks were dispatched into Syria and reached the Suleiman Shah Ling.
On 22 February, under the cover of Turkish troops, the tomb guards and mausoleum collections withdrew from the original cemetery area and continued to move north to 200 meters from the Turkish-Syrian border, but still in Syria.
▲ Operation Euphrates, Turkey sent troops to suleiman Shah Mausoleum
In April 2018, Turkish Prime Minister Isyk said he would move the cemetery back to the site of the first relocation, the site from 1973 to 2015. However, because of the Syrian civil war and the fact that the Islamic State has not been eradicated, the plan to relocate the cemetery to its old site has not been implemented.
▲Enclave inside and outside enclave
From 1973 to the present, the Suleiman Shah Mausoleum has undergone two relocations and is currently located in Syria, 200 meters from the Turkish-Syrian border.
Taking advantage of the facilities granted by the Treaty of Ankara, the Turks moved them to the Turkish-Syrian border, both to protect the security of the mausoleum and to demonstrate the significance of the military presence in Syria.
▲ Suleiman Shah's coffin
For Syria, the entry of Turkish troops is undoubtedly a violation of its sovereignty. But compared to Turkey, Syria's national strength is weak.
The mire of civil war in recent years has weakened Syria's national strength. Despite Syria's repeated protests against the entry of Turkish troops, it has not been able to change the existence of this "cemetery enclave".
▲Map of the Middle East