New lines in the sand a century after Sykes-Picot?
Some historians give credit for the original idea of carving zones of influence out of the “sick man of Europe,” the Ottoman Empire, to Sergey Sazanov, who was the Russian foreign minister before and during the First World War. Records revealed by the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in November 1917 showed that negotiations between Mark Sykes (on behalf of Britain) and François George-Picot (on behalf of France) started in November 1915 and were concluded on May 16, 1916, almost two weeks after the defeat of British forces by the Ottomans in Kut al-Amara (now in Iraq) on April 29, 1916 - with the consent of the Tsarist Russian government.
More:New lines in the sand a century after Sykes-Picot? - MURAT YETKİN