The agreements that shaped the region may be forgotten in the west,but in the Middle East their significance still looms largeIn an idle moment between cocktail parties in the Arab capital where they served, a British and French diplomat were chatting recently approximately their respective countries’ legacies in the Middle East: why not commemorate them with a current rock band? And they could call it Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration. It was just a joke. These first world war agreements cooked up in London and Paris in the dying days of the Ottoman empire paved the way for current Arab nation states, or the creation of Israel and the continuing plight of the Palestinians. And if their memory has faded in the west as their centenaries approach,they are still widely blamed for the problems of the region at an unusually violent and troubled time.
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Source: theguardian.com