Sykes–Picot Agreement
At the time the agreement was made, there had preceded it (apart from the Balfour Declaration) the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Hogarth message, the Bassett Letter, the Declaration to the Seven and the Anglo-French Declaration. Of these, the Sykes-Picot Agreement had been made public by the Bolsheviks and the Declaration to the Seven as well as the Anglo-French Declaration were also public documents. The Sykes–Picot Agreement had called for an "Arab State or a Confederation of Arab States ... under the suzerainty of an Arab chief". The French and British also proposed an international administration in the "brown area" (an area including Jerusalem, similar to and smaller than Mandate Palestine), the form of which was to be decided upon after consultation with Russia, and subsequently in consultation with the other Allies, "and the representatives of the Shereef of Mecca".