Note of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR to the Ambassador of Turkey to the RSFSR Ali Fuad.

 A source: USSR foreign policy documents. Volume 4. p. 255. Moscow. State Political Publishing House. 1960

August 8, 1921 No. 11/4611

Mr. Ambassador,

Some time ago, the Plenipotentiary Representative of the Russian Republic in Turkey, Natsarenus, was instructed to inform the People's Commissar Yusuf Kemal-bey on behalf of the Russian Government that the delay in responding to his note dated July 9, concerning Russia's participation in the conference of Turkey and the Caucasus Republics, was due to extreme slowness in the transmission of telegrams to their destination, as well as due to the need for prior agreement with the aforementioned republics.

Based on the obligation contained in the Moscow Treaty to take the necessary steps for the Caucasian Republics to conclude treaties with Turkey that meet the terms of the Moscow Treaty. The Russian Government fully shares the opinion of the Turkish Government regarding the timely participation of the Russian delegation in the proposed conference of Turkey and the Caucasus Republics.

However, the experience of recent months - the receipt of the aforementioned note by the People's Commissar Yusuf Kemal-bey with a very significant delay - testifies to the enormous difficulty in establishing a satisfactory connection between Angora and Moscow - a circumstance to which the still too close proximity of the theater of war is added.

The Russian Government would therefore consider it completely untimely to abandon the earlier decision to convene the aforementioned conference in Kars. At the same time, it asks the Turkish Government to inform it on what date it would consider it possible to open the work of the proposed conference in Kars.

Please accept, Mr. Ambassador, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Chicherin

This note was sent in connection with the following note by Yusuf Kemal to G.V. Chicherin dated July 1, 1921:

“In order to settle all unresolved issues between Turkey and the Transcaucasian states and to take into account in the treaties to be concluded with each of these states the resolutions of the Moscow Treaty relating to them, my Government has now asked the governments of these states to appoint their delegates to the conference at which all these issues will be considered and settled.

My Government would be very happy if the Soviet Government also agreed to send its delegates to this conference, so that, in accordance with Article XV of the Moscow Treaty, they could, if necessary, make to their Caucasian colleagues the necessary representations for the mandatory application of the clauses of the Russian-Turkish Treaty concerning them ...

In view of the fact that my Government at one time hastened to agree to your request of December 19, 1920 regarding the transfer of the meeting place of the conference from Baku to Moscow, then I would personally be very grateful if you would use your influence on the Transcaucasian Soviet Republics, so that the proposed conference was not scheduled in one of the cities of Eastern Anatolia, as it was orally agreed between me and the government officials of Azerbaijan and Georgia, but in Angora itself.

The reasons prompting me to turn to you with this request are the same as those set forth in your telegram of December 19, 1920: the importance of this future conference, my ardent desire to complete the work that I have begun, and the impossibility under present circumstances to leave Angora. The exceptional opportunities that have been given to your Plenipotentiary Representation in our city in communicating on important occasions by direct wire with Trebizond, where there is a Russian radio station, serve as a guarantee that the Contracting Parties - Russian and Caucasian - will maintain constant contact with their governments. "

* So in the text. Obviously, the note of July 1 is meant - see, p. 266.