The 1823 Ottoman–Qajar agreement addressed seasonal movement, the Haydaran and Sepki tribes, pilgrims and commerce. Its wording and negotiation records explain both its restrictions and the frontier questions it left unresolved.

An engraved view of Erzurum with minarets, a walled citadel, foreground figures and mountains behind the city
Erzurum in an engraving credited to J. Ramage and A. Willmore, published around 1878. This later city view is not a depiction of the 1823 negotiations. Public domain. J. Ramage / A. Willmore · Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

An agreement between imperial delegates

Concluded at Erzurum on 28 July 1823, the treaty ended Ottoman–Qajar hostilities in the early 1820s. Its preamble names the empowered negotiators: the Ottoman commander and governor Rauf Pasha, and Mirza Muhammad Ali, representing Fath Ali Shah and Crown Prince Abbas Mirza. Its stated basis reaffirmed the agreement of 1746, including earlier boundary and diplomatic commitments. It required territory occupied by Persia to be restored within sixty days and prisoners on both sides to be allowed home. This was a negotiated restoration of relations, not a newly surveyed line across the entire frontier. [1]

Seasonal pasture was a diplomatic question

Article 1 prohibited interference in the other state’s internal affairs and specifically restricted Persian intervention around Baghdad and Kurdistan. It also acknowledged seasonal movement: when tribes crossed that frontier for summer or winter residence, Abbas Mirza’s agents and the pasha of Baghdad were to arrange customary tribute, pasture rents and other claims. This provision matters because crossing a boundary could be part of a pastoral livelihood. The treaty did not simply order all mobile communities to remain permanently on one side; it tried to regulate movement through officials and payments. [1]

What Article 3 required of the Haydaran and Sepki

Article 3 named the Haydaran and Sepki, then living in Ottoman territory. Ottoman frontier officials were to prevent and punish their raids into Persia; continued attacks that officials failed to restrain would end Ottoman protection. If the tribes chose to move to Persia, their departure was not to be obstructed, but a later return to Ottoman protection was prohibited. Persian officials, in turn, were to prevent attacks on Ottoman lands. Article 4 separately barred protection for deserters and wandering tribes transferring between the states. These were restrictive conditions on allegiance and mobility, not recognition of Kurdish national representation. [1]

A dispute nearly broke the negotiations

Eralp Yaşar Azap’s publication of the Ottoman negotiation minutes reveals how contested these terms were. The Qajar envoy demanded the disputed communities’ return; the Ottoman side insisted they were its subjects. A proposed division between the two states failed to satisfy the envoy’s mandate. The transcribed record describes threats to end the talks before the delegates found a compromise allowing those already in Ottoman territory to remain, while regulating future departure and protection. The document records the states’ claims about people; it does not establish a single collective Kurdish position. [2]

Merchants, pilgrims and inherited property

Article 2 protected Persian pilgrims, distinguishing travel without merchandise from taxable commercial goods. For Persian merchants it set customs at four piastres per hundred of value, with documentation to prevent repeated collection while the goods remained with their original owners. Articles 5 and 6 addressed confiscated property and the registration and safekeeping of deceased Persians’ estates. Fariba Zarrinebaf-Shahr situates the 1823 customs settlement within the history of Persian commerce and migration in Ottoman lands. These practical provisions explain why the treaty mattered beyond military diplomacy. [1] [4]

A settlement with continuing consequences

Yener Koç’s archival study follows disputes over winter quarters after the agreement: governors of Muş, Van and Bayezid argued over resources, revenue and the burden on village households. By 1826 some Haydaran groups remained in Ottoman districts while others moved toward Khoy; Sepki groups also divided between destinations. Such decisions show frontier communities adapting within competing systems of authority. [3] The later Erzurum agreement of 1847 must be distinguished from 1823: its Article 3 expressly called for commissioners and engineers to determine the frontier. That clause should not be attributed to the first treaty. [1]

Sources and further reading

  1. C. U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads, revised through 1930 (Government of India, 1933), Appendix VI, pp. xix–xxii: English translation of the 1823 treaty; Appendix X, pp. xlvi–xlvii: 1847 agreement.
  2. Eralp Yaşar Azap, “I. Erzurum Antlaşmasının (1823) Meclis-i Mükâleme Mazbatası,” Belgeler XXXIX/43 (2024), pp. 1–14, DOI 10.37879/belgeler.2024.1; especially Appendix I, transcription of the Ottoman negotiation minutes.
  3. Yener Koç, Nomadic Pastoral Tribes at the Intersection of the Ottoman, Persian and Russian Empires (1820s–1890s), PhD dissertation, Boğaziçi University (2020), pp. 98–105: war, treaty and subsequent winter-quarter disputes.
  4. Fariba Zarrinebaf-Shahr, “Diaspora iv. Persians in Ottoman Turkey,” Encyclopaedia Iranica (1995; updated 2016): customs arrangements and commercial migration.
  5. J. Ramage / A. Willmore, “Erzeroum,” in The Russo-Turkish War, edited by H. M. Hozier, vol. IV, circa 1878; public-domain city engraving via Wikimedia Commons.