However, less than three weeks earlier the governments of the United Kingdom, France, and Russia secretly concluded the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which Balfour described later as a "wholly new method" for dividing the region, after the 1915 agreement "seems to have been forgotten".
Namun, kurang dari tiga pekan sebelum pemerintah Britania Raya, Prancis dan Rusia diam-diam mengadakan Perjanjian Sykes–Picot, yang Balfour kemudian sebut sebagai "seluruh metode baru" untuk membagi kawasan tersebut, setelah perjanjian tahun 1915 tersebut "tampak terlupakan".