Treaty of Kars
카르스 조약
A border treaty signed in Kars on 13 October 1921 by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, with the participation of the Russian SFSR. Reaffirming the Treaty of Moscow of March 1921, it left Kars and Ardahan to Turkey and Batumi to Soviet Georgia and made Nakhchivan an autonomous territory under Azerbaijan’s protection.
In depth
Kâzım Karabekir signed for Turkey and Ambassador Yakov Ganetsky for Soviet Russia; the signatories also included Askanaz Mravyan for Armenia, Behboud Shahtahtinsky for Azerbaijan and Shalva Eliava for Georgia. The former Batumi oblast was divided: the southern part around Artvin went to Turkey, while the northern part, including the port of Batumi, stayed with Soviet Georgia as the Adjar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The treaty guaranteed the autonomy of this largely Muslim region and the duty-free transit of Turkish goods through the port of Batumi. The Armenian–Turkish border was drawn along the Akhuryan (Arpachay) and Aras rivers, giving Turkey Kars, Ardahan, Oltu and the ruins of Ani, as well as Surmalu with Mount Ararat and the Kulp salt mines. The Bolsheviks tried to keep Ani and Kulp, but Turkey refused, while Turkish troops withdrew from the western part of present-day Shirak Province, including Alexandropol. Article V made Nakhchivan an autonomous territory under Azerbaijan’s protection; it became the Nakhichevan ASSR in 1924.
After the Second World War, on 7 June 1945, Vyacheslav Molotov told the Turkish ambassador that Kars, Ardahan and Artvin should be returned to the Soviet Union; according to Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrentiy Beria had goaded Joseph Stalin into the claim. The United States and Britain opposed it, and after Stalin’s death in 1953 the Soviet Union renounced its territorial claims and honoured the treaty until its dissolution in 1991. Afterwards Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan accepted the treaty; in 2006 Armenia said it accepted it as the legal successor of the Armenian SSR but that Turkey, through its blockade, was violating Article XVII on free transit. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation rejects the treaty as a violation of international law, arguing that the Transcaucasian republics of 1921 were under Moscow’s control.