MOSCOW (TASS News Agency) — Members of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) Valery Rashkin and Sergei Obukhov (Communist Party faction) have sent a letter to the country’s leadership and the Foreign Ministry proposing to denounce the Moscow Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood signed on March 16, 1921, by the government of Soviet Russia (RSFSR) and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, writes Russia’s Izvestia daily which has obtained the text of the letter.
“We should consider a possibility of legal review of all Russian-Turkish agreements that are unfavorable for our country and its allies. Ankara must understand what the escalation of the conflict could be fraught with for it. Only this can bring it to earth and prevent it from carrying out new provocations,” Obukhov told Izvestia.
The initiative has been supported by the Just Russia faction. According to State Duma member Oleg Pakholkov, the Moscow treaty was signed to the detriment of Russia’s interests.
Obukhov noted that “two of the three South Caucasian republics – Georgia and Armenia – did not recognize the terms of the treaty considering it unfair.” “One should realize that in 1921 the Bolshevik (Soviet) government was literally hanging by a single thread: the foreign intervention and civil war continued. Under those circumstances Soviet Russia could not speak from a position of strength and impose more favorable terms of the treaty on Turkey,” the parliamentarian said.
The newspaper notes that under the treaty “the former Kars region and the southern part of the former Batumi region that were part of the Russian Empire since 1878 as well as former Surmalin district of Erivan Governorate that was part of the Russian Empire since 1828 with Mount Ararat were ceded to Turkey.”
With Turkey in NATO no one is taking these tantrum outbursts very seriously. The real target of all this saber rattling is for domestic audiences. It’s a useful tool to justify the continued hegemonic policies towards countries in the South Caucasus.
Armenia must recover these territories,
This may be the beginning. The time is right: Turkey is beginning to fall to pieces, it is being eaten away by internal conflict, Erdogan’s governance, so forth. Russia is strong, and they got a president. Also encouraging is the fact it is first published in Izvestia, one of the oldest and most respected newspapers there. It is not by chance that this information is out. The mere mentioning of the Treaty of Moscow, coming from a big country, is a good sign. Now we can say that the word is out. Turkey’s false, illegitimate ‘sovereignty’ over those lands, which is based off separatist agreements with Bolsheviks, is being questioned. By the way, those lands were given to Turkey for 25 years, so the time expired decades ago.
I agree it is the time that Armenians and Kurds recover their lands
Apparently the Russian government still is not feeling in a position of strength to cancel that shameful 1921 treaty for reclaiming the Armenian lands gifted to Turkey. Apparently we Armenians have not understood yet whom to trust to protect our country today against Turkish expansionism.
I’m sure it is not the EU, US or UK to whom we should trust
It is time to make justice, 100 years is more than enough for the sufferings of Armenians, Asyrians, Kurds, …..you name it