The Baghdad Pact began with an Iraq–Turkey agreement in February 1955. Its treaty, accession records and declassified U.S. assessments show how regional defence and internal security overlapped, while requiring care about claims concerning particular Kurdish movements.

Green Baghdad Pact poster with a large white crescent and star, four national flags and English and Arabic lettering promoting faith, security and progress
A Baghdad Pact promotional poster associated with Karachi, dated 16 February 1958 in the National Archives catalogue, record 6948822. Preserved in U.S. Information Agency records, it expresses an official message rather than a neutral account of political freedoms. U.S. Information Agency collection · National Archives / DPLA / Wikimedia Commons · Public-domain record. Reused at web resolution without creative changes.

Signature, accession and entry into force

Iraq and Turkey signed the Pact of Mutual Co-operation at Baghdad on 24 February 1955; it entered into force on 15 April. The UN Treaty Collection records Britain’s accession deposit on 5 April, effective on 15 April, Pakistan’s accession on 23 September and Iran’s on 3 November 1955. [1] These are distinct legal events, not five simultaneous signatures. The original bilateral agreement became the basis of a wider alliance.

What the eight articles actually say

Article 1 provides for security and defence cooperation consistent with Article 51 of the UN Charter, leaving specific measures to further agreements. Article 3 requires non-interference and peaceful settlement of disputes. Article 5 permits accessions; Article 6 provides a ministerial council once four powers are parties; Article 7 sets renewable five-year periods and a notice procedure for withdrawal. [2] The text does not name the Kurds or establish a specific operation against them. Its general clauses must be distinguished from later committees, national policies and military activity.

U.S. involvement was substantial but not full membership

John N. Irwin’s memorandum of 28 February 1958 says the United States was not a pact member, while supporting it materially and politically. It records participation in the Economic and Counter-Subversion Committees from April 1956 and in Military Committee work from 1957. It also distinguishes bilateral U.S. military-assistance programmes from the pact itself, noting internal-security priorities in aid to Iraq and Iran. [3] This supports examining domestic coercive capacity, without describing every American activity as an obligation contained in the treaty.

A specific document for the Kurdish dimension

The Operations Coordinating Board’s 14 December 1955 Iraq report acknowledged earlier repression of Kurds while viewing Kurdish communities through the possibility of communist recruitment and Soviet wartime influence. Crucially, it also judged a Kurdish revolt unlikely at that moment. It described a Kirkuk information programme directed toward the Kurdish population and recommended internal-security priorities for military assistance. [4] These are U.S. officials’ assessments and policy proposals, not a neutral description of all Kurdish aims. They document a Cold War security lens; they do not independently prove a named joint Turkish–Iranian–Iraqi operation carried out under the pact.

Regional governments had different objectives

Kechichian’s account places Soviet containment alongside regional competition. Nuri al-Said’s government sought a stronger position against Egypt, while Gamal Abdel Nasser opposed an alliance he regarded as serving Western interests and weakening Arab neutrality. Iran and Pakistan had their own security and political concerns. [5] The alliance should therefore be studied through overlapping purposes, rather than reduced to either a purely external defence system or one identical programme shared by every member.

The 1958 revolution did not itself complete withdrawal

Kechichian’s CENTO entry distinguishes the overthrow of Iraq’s monarchy in July 1958 from Iraq’s withdrawal in March 1959 and the name change to CENTO in August 1959. The organisation continued without Iraq, with its secretariat in Ankara. It describes the final loss of members and dissolution in 1979 after Iran’s revolution. [6] Those separate turning points explain why the Baghdad Pact’s original political configuration ended before the surviving organisation did.

Reading the public message beside the archive

The illustrated poster presents four Muslim member states through flags, religious language and promises of security and progress. [7] Its optimistic imagery can be compared with the internal-security assessments, which discuss policing, propaganda and suppression. [3] [4] For Kurdish history, the strongest account keeps these different sources in conversation: a treaty establishes formal commitments, a poster promotes legitimacy, and confidential documents reveal particular official assumptions and proposed actions.

Sources and further reading

  1. UN Treaty Collection, Pact of Mutual Co-operation between Iraq and Turkey, registration 3264, UNTS 233, p. 199; entry into force and accession deposits.
  2. Pact of Mutual Cooperation, 24 February 1955, articles 1–8; Yale Avalon reproduction of American Foreign Policy 1950–1955: Basic Documents (1957).
  3. John N. Irwin to John Foster Dulles, 28 February 1958, U.S. Foreign Policy and Military Assistance in the Middle East; FRUS 1958–1960, XII, document 12.
  4. Operations Coordinating Board, Analysis of Internal Security Situation in Iraq and Recommended Action, 14 December 1955; FRUS 1955–1957, XII, document 427, especially paragraphs 3, 6, 20, 29 and 42.
  5. Joseph A. Kechichian, Baghdad Pact, Encyclopaedia Iranica III/4 (1988), p. 415; regional political setting.
  6. Joseph A. Kechichian, Central Treaty Organization, Encyclopaedia Iranica V/3 (1991), pp. 259–260; withdrawal, renaming and dissolution.
  7. Baghdad Pact Posters and Maps, National Archives record 6948822, dated 16 February 1958, USIA collection; DPLA/Wikimedia Commons, public-domain record.