status of foreigners in Turkey. The first was chaired by Lord Curzon, the second by French Ambassador Camille Barrère and the third by the Italian diplomat Marquis Garone. On 23 November, Curzon's commission began its processions. İsmet Pasha delivered a long speech in which he demanded the cession of Karaagac, a suburb of Edirne, which had been retained by Greece as part of Western Thrace. Curzon responded by chastising the Turks for making what he considered to be excessive demands. He was met with widespread support by the French and Italians and went on to state that the "exhibition of so firm an Allied front at this stage and on so important an issue took [the] Turks very much by surprise and will probably exercise a decisive influence in our future proceedings". That feeling did not last, however, since by December, Turkish obstruction and stubbornness and Italian concessions had all but halted negotiations. The Soviet delegation arrived in Lausanne on 28 November 1922 with Georgy Vasilyevich Chicherin as its chief spokesman. It demanded to be admitted to the conference as a whole, and when the Straits Commission officially met on 5 December, it also demanded the closure of the Straits, both in peace and war, to warships and aircraft of all nations except Turkey. Both proposals were rejected, and any Soviet protest was ignored. Soviet envoy Vatslav Vorovsky was granted entry as an observer to the orient conference, but not as an official delegate, and the Soviets were not granted diplomatic protections by the Swiss government. On 16 December, Curzon decided that he would remain at the conference over the Christmas holiday to expedite the conference's conclusion. He intended to draw up a preliminary treaty containing the points already agreed to in the meetings with the Turks and then he would invite İsmet Pasha to accept or reject it as a statement of agreed principle. Curzon would let experts fill in the rest. After Christmas, however, the increasing Turkish inflexibility on generally all significant clauses and rumors of an imminent Turkish military advance on Istanbul led Curzon to seek a private meeting with İsmet. Curzon found the Turkish foreign minister "impervious to argument, warning or appeal, and can only go on repeating the same catchwords, indulging in the same futil quibbles, and making the same childish complaints". Curzon's intention of presenting the Turks with a preliminary treaty was further hindered