Treaty of Kars
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The Treaty of Kars (Turkish: Kars Antlaşması, Russian: Карсский договор) was a friendship treaty between Turkey and the Soviet Union. It was signed in Kars on October 23, 1921 and ratified in Yerevan on September 11, 1922.<ref>Text of the Treaty of Kars</ref>
In the treaty, Turkey ceded Adjara with its largest city of Batumi to the Soviet Union and the Transcaucasian SFSR in return for sovereignty over the Kars-Ardahan region (an area roughly corresponding to the Kars, Ardahan, and Iğdır Provinces of present-day Turkey as well as parts of the present day Artvin and Erzurum Provinces), thus allowing Turkey to assume control over parts of Russian Armenia without the consent of the Armenian people. The decision to make Nakhichevan an autonomous republic of Azerbaijan which had been previously determined in a referendum, was reaffirmed in the treaty. It was also decided that the territory of the former Sharur-Daralagez uyezd (which had a solid Azeri majority) would be attached to Nakhichevan. Additionally, a strip of Sharur's territory would be ceded to Turkey, allowing it to share a border with Azerbaijan. Most of the territories ceded to Turkey were won by Russia in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 with the Iğdır region (which encompassed Mount Ararat) being the only exception, as that was won by Russia in the Treaty of Turkmanchai with Iran. The treaty also effectively ended the short-lived existence of the Democratic Republic of Armenia.
After World War II, the Soviet Union attempted to annul the Kars treaty and regain its lost territory. On June 7, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov told the Turkish ambassador in Moscow that the regions should be returned to the USSR, in the name of both the Georgian and Armenian republics. Turkey found itself in a difficult position: it wanted good relations with the Soviet Union but at the same time they refused to give up the territories. Some British diplomats noted that as early as 1939, Soviet politicians might reopen the question. Turkey itself was in no condition to fight a war with the Soviet Union which had emerged as a superpower after the second world war. By the autumn of 1945, Soviet troops in the Caucasus were already assembling for a possible invasion of Turkey.
Soviet claims were put forth by the Armenians to the leaders of the Allies of World War II however opposition stemmed from British leader Winston Churchill who objected to these territorial claims as additional areas of where the Soviet government could exert its influence while President of the United States Harry S. Truman of the United States felt that matter shouldn't concern other parties.
Since independence in 1991, Armenia has refused to recognize the Kars treaty.
[edit] Notes
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[edit] See also
- Aftermath of World War I
- Democratic Republic of Armenia
- Armenian Genocide
- Caucasus Campaign
- Treaty of Sèvres
- Treaty of Lausanne
- History of Adjara
