Second Cairo Conference

[1] Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill maintained the opinion that Turkey's continuing neutrality would serve the interests of the Allies by blocking the Axis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of the Middle East.

[1] The fear of a Soviet invasion and Stalin's unconcealed desire to control the Turkish straits eventually caused Turkey to give up its principle of neutrality in foreign relations and join NATO in 1952.

Perhaps the biggest reason for Turkey's hesitation to immediately join the war on the side of the Allies was the eventual reduction of the amount of financial and military aid which Churchill had promised in Adana.

[1] By December 1943 the Anglo-American authorities felt the overall situation had changed so fundamentally that a much smaller scale of assistance than that provided in the Hardihood Agreement of the spring of 1943 would be necessary.

[1] Roosevelt and İnönü got what they wanted, while Churchill was disappointed with the result, because he believed that an active Turkish participation in the war would quicken the German defeat by hitting their "soft underbelly" in the southeast.