Soviet territorial claims against Turkey

According to the memories of Nikita Khrushchev, the deputy premier Lavrentiy Beria pressed Joseph Stalin to claim eastern Anatolian territory that had supposedly been stolen from Georgia by the Turks.

[1] The Soviet Union had long objected to the Montreux Convention of 1936 which gave Turkey sole control over shipping between the Bosphorus strait, an essential waterway for Russian exports.

[2] The disputed territory around Kars and Ardahan was governed by the Russian Empire from 1878 to 1921, when it was ceded to Turkey by Russia but continued to be inhabited by members of the respective ethnicities who now had titular Soviet Socialist Republics.

[2] In 1945, 14–20 December, central Georgian and Russian newspapers: Communist, Zarya Vostoka, Pravda and Izvestia, published letter on our legitimate claim against Turkey written by academics Simon Janashia and Niko Berdzenishvili.

[3] the publication says: After successful libratory war, victorious democracy is now preparing to fight for peace and prosperity, freedom loving people want to take their rightful place.

Following the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviet government renounced its territorial claims on Turkey, as part of an effort to promote friendly relations with the transcontinental country and its alliance partner, the United States.