Åžerif Pasha

Mehmet Serif Pasha or short Serif Pasha (* 1865, Üsküdar, Istanbul, † December 22, 1951 in Catanzaro / Italy ) was a high-ranking Ottoman army officer and politician of Kurdish ethnicity.

Career and political career

Mehmet Serif family comes from a side branch of the Kurdish Baban from Sulaymaniyah in Iraq today. His father was twice Said Pasha Ottoman Foreign Minister and his son also aspired to a political career. Mehmet Serif graduated from the Royal School ( Mekteb -i Sultani, today Galatasaray High School ) in Istanbul. He then attended the French Military Academy of Saint- Cyr. His political career began at the State Department. He then rose to the military attaché in Berlin and Paris. Between 1898 and 1908 he was the Ottoman ambassador for Sweden. For a time he was the chairman of the Ottoman State ( Sura -yi Devlet ). Mehmet Serif has won many international medals as from Romania, Iran and Spain. Among other things, he also received an award from the Pope and the badge of the French Legion of Honour.

1895 Serif member of the Committee of Union and Progress was ( Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti ). When this came to power in 1908, and the Sultan had largely disempowered, Mehmet Serif resigned from the party. He accused her of abuse of power and oppression. He was also, however, that officers got involved as party members in politics. When he campaigned more and more against the committee, he was referred to as government opponents and revolutionary and suspected of involvement in the assassination of the Ottoman Grand Vizier Mahmud Pasha Şevket. On 12 June 1913 he was sentenced to death. In Paris, an assassination attempt was made ​​on his life on 14 January 1914. The death sentence was overturned by the successor government of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha in 1918.

Kurdish policy

After 1918, Mehmet Serif turned to the Kurdish national movement. The defeat of the Ottomans in World War I, the rise of Turkish nationalism and the fact that Mehmet Serif received no office in the new Ottoman government, prompting him to distance himself from the government. In 1918 he became a member of Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti in which his brother Fuat Pasha was a member before. Since he was very well known abroad, he became a representative of the Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti on abroad. However, unlike other leading members of the family Bedirxan Begs and Sheikh Mehmet Serif Ubeydallahs family did not speak Kurdish. Aside from a few visits as a child in his home, he had no reference to its origin.

Treaty of Sèvres

In the peace negotiations in 1919 between the Ottomans and the Triple Entente in Sèvres near Paris Mehmet Serif occurred as a Kurdish delegate. He called for a Kurdish state, at the head of which he saw himself as a king, and wanted it to enforce the contract. Was also present at the negotiations of the Armenian envoy Boghos Nubar Pasha, who advocated the creation of an Armenian state, both sides partially claimed the same land. On November 20, 1919, she agreed. However, the agreement led to protests on the part of the Kurds in eastern Anatolia, who did not want to cede to the Armenians their country. They recognized Mehmet Serif to not as their representative. Mehmet Serif retired then returned from the negotiations. In April 1920, he had to show his loyalty to the Sultan and Empire and completely withdraw from the Kurdish policy under pressure from the government in Istanbul. After the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, he no longer chose to Turkey return and lived from then on in Cairo. Mehmet Serif died in late 1951 in the Italian city of Catanzaro. His body was buried in Egypt.

Marriage

Mehmet Serif was married twice. His first wife Emine came from the Egyptian family of Kavali and was the sister of the Ottoman Grand Vizier Said Halim Pasha. They married in 1890. Because they supported the activities of her husband against the Committee of Union and Progress, she was not allowed to enter the Ottoman Empire for several years. Although she was not Kurdish, she was very active in the Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti.

About his second wife Melle Edwige Pairani Not much is known.