Chester concession

The Chester concession, approved by the congress of the newly founded Republic of Turkey on April 10, 1923,[citation needed] would have allowed United States development of oil and railways.

The U.S. corporation would have the rights to all the mineral resources, including oil fields, found within a 20-kilometer zone on each side of the railway lines, as well as the privilege of carrying on subsidiary activities such as the laying of pipelines, the utilization of water power for construction, and the building of port and terminal facilities on the Black Sea and the Gulf of Alexandretta.

The corporation could utilize the resources of the public lands, including sandpits, gravel pits, quarries and timber, without compensation and was granted exemption from taxation.

The French Foreign Office, on behalf of nationals with whose claims the Chester grant conflicted, despatched a note to the Ankara government in which it characterized the whole procedure as being deliberately unfriendly.

[5] Turkish officials used the concession to mend Turkey's negative image deriving from the recent Armenian genocide.