Treaty of Moscow §

Background

Bolshevik Russia and Kemalist Turkey were both diplomatically isolated after the First World War. Each opposed the Allied settlement, each wanted secure frontiers, and each treated the South Caucasian republics as objects of strategy rather than equal negotiating parties.

The treaty

The treaty confirmed Turkey's control over Kars, Ardahan and Surmalu, placed Batum with Soviet Georgia and set Nakhichevan under Azerbaijani protection. Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia were not equal negotiators at Moscow; their later signatures at Kars regionalised a settlement already made by larger powers.

Significance

Moscow 1921 is a central example of small-state dispossession editorial. Armenia lost territories promised by Sèvres; Azerbaijan gained the legal basis for Nakhichevan; Turkey secured its eastern frontier; Russia bought strategic partnership with Ankara. The treaty also shaped the later Zangezur corridor question by fixing Nakhichevan as Azerbaijani but geographically separated.