The Treaty of Sevres has legal effect as neither of the sides that have signed it declared the document invalid, Director of the History Institute at the National Academy of Sciences Ashot Melkonyan told the reporters on Tuesday.

He noted that the recent research by the History Institute proves that according to the Turkish statistics not a single Armenian resided in the territories that had to be returned to Armenia under the Treaty of Sevres and Woodraw Wilson Arbitrary Act. According to the same statistics, 300-500 Armenian families lived in the west, in Sebastia, Harberd and Diyarbakir where the Armenian churches were functioning as well. “Turkey was always afraid of the Treaty of Sevres, while U.S. tried to use the occasion to impose its will on Ankara, deploy its military bases in the country, etc,” Melkonyan noted.

The 90th anniversary of the Treaty of Sevres is marked on August 10. The treaty put Turkey under an obligation to return part of its Armenia’s historical lands of 100.000 m². The treaty provided access to sea for Armenia as well.