From the annual report of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR to the IX Congress of Soviets for 1920-1921
Turkey
After the preliminary meetings with the Turkish delegates in Moscow in the summer of 1920, and the foundations of the future treaty were worked out, at the end of 1920 at the beginning of 1921 a difficult situation was created in the Middle East, culminating in the signing of the Moscow Russian-Turkish Treaty on March 16. In the West, this period is characterized by the establishment of contact between Angora and Constantinople and first by diplomatic preludes to the London Conference on Eastern Affairs, and then by the participation of Aigora and Constantinople together, in the East by the defeat of Dashnak Armenia by the troops of Karabekir Pasha and the greatly increased claims of Turkey, after which the compromise was followed by a lasting settlement of our relations with Turkey. All this time there was the closest contact between both governments,
On November 9, the composition of the Russian mission arrived in Angora, but the appointed plenipotentiary, Comrade Eliava, was detained by a serious illness. The affairs of the mission were temporarily in charge of the first secretary, Comrade Upmal, and later was sent to Kars and Angora on an emergency mission, comrade Mdivani. Turkish Delegate Extraordinary Bekir Sami Bey left Moscow on November 16, and soon afterwards the commander of the Western Front, Ali Fuad Pasha, who arrived in Moscow in February, was appointed Turkish ambassador to us.
As a result of a short but energetic offensive by the Turkish troops of Kazim Karabekir Pasha, in which both sides rejected our mediation, the Dashnak government was forced on December 2, after the first proclamation of Soviet Armenia, to conclude peace with Turkey in Alexandropol (Gyumri), according to which Armenia is only the area to the east of the Arpa-chai River and north of the Araks remained, and even in this area, Armenia pledged not to have a standing army and to issue weapons to the Turks, the latter received the right to control and conduct military operations, but promised to help the Armenian government against external and internal enemies. The Russian Republic, which was in an alliance with the Armenian Soviet Republic that emerged at that time, did not recognize the Treaty of Alexandropol, which, moreover, was not ratified within the prescribed month.
On December 9, 1920, the NKID informs Angora that the RSFSR is happy to accept the proposal of the Turkish government to convene a conference in Moscow and considers it necessary for representatives of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Soviet governments to participate in this conference. At the conference in Moscow, representatives of the RSFSR appointed the Collegium of the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, which makes it unacceptable, according to the NKID in its note to the Turkish government, the proposal to convene the conference in Baku. On December 22, the Turkish government announced that General Ali Fuad Pasha, who will also be a member of the Turkish delegation, which will include People's Commissars Yusuf Kemal-bey and Riza Nur-Bey, has been appointed Turkey's envoy to Moscow.
On January 13, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in a telegram to Ahmed Mukhtar welcomes the expected arrival of the Turkish delegation to Moscow.
On January 29 and 31, Bekir Sami-Bey in a radiogram informs about the correspondence with the Entente powers: The Government of the Grand National Assembly in Turkey is the only legitimate government of Turkey and is ready to send its delegates to a conference in Europe for negotiations on the end of hostilities, provided that direct offer to send those.
On January 31, 1921, Ahmed Mukhtar reported to the NKID the text of telegrams exchanged between the head of the government Mustafa Kemal and the Grand Vizier of Constantinople Tevfik Pasha. The Constantinople government agreed to a conference between the delegates of the Entente powers and the delegates of Turkey and Greece, scheduled in London for February 12, 1921, only on condition of the presence of delegates from Angora, which Tevfik Pasha asks to send. In his reply, Mustafa Kemal states that Angora will only consider proposals directly addressed to the Angora government, the only legitimate representative of the Turkish people.
February 11, 1921 Bekir Sami-bey announces the forthcoming departure of the Turkish delegation to London. In February, Ali Fuad Pasha, the Turkish ambassador to the RSFSR, and a delegation to conclude a peace treaty with the RSFSR, arrive in Moscow.
Simultaneous negotiations between Turkey and Russia and the Entente ended in opposite results in London and Moscow. The Russian-Turkish treaty on March 16 recognized the right of the eastern peoples to freedom and independence and to choose a form of government in accordance with their desires, consolidated friendly relations between the two countries, recognized the force of the Turkish National Act on January 28, 1920, left Kars, Ardahan and Artvin and established the autonomy of Batum with duty-free transit for Turkish goods and the protectorate of Azerbaijan over Nakhichevan. The treaty recognizes a mutual obligation to repatriate prisoners of war and provides for the conclusion of a trade and consular convention. The RSFSR undertakes not to recognize the regime of capitulations, renounces all special privileges and debts of tsarist Russia; questions about the straits are referred to the countries of the Black Sea coast.
Bekir Sami's London negotiations ended in failure due to the stubborn reluctance of the Entente to abandon the basic demands of the Treaty of Sevres, unacceptable for Turkey, although signed by the reactionary government of Constantinople of the Sultan. His agreements with France (March 7) and Italy (March 13) were not approved by the Grand National Assembly in Angora.
On March 29, the NKID announces the appointment of Comrade Natsarenus as plenipotentiary to Turkey and by May 5 receives Turkey's consent.
Afghanistan
In our relations with Afghanistan over the past year, the main role was played by the question of concluding a friendly treaty with Afghanistan.
The treaty was drafted and adopted in its original form in Kabul on September 13, 1920, about which our plenipotentiary, Comrade Surits, notified the Afghan Foreign Minister with a note of the same date, and the latter - Comrade Suritsa with a reply note from 24 sumbul in 1299 (16 September 1920), and expressed joy and pleasure at the adoption of the treaty.
At the initiative of our office, the agreement, the part concerning the establishment of diplomatic relations, was considered by both parties as already binding. On the 4th of Mizap 1299 (September 27, 1920), the plenipotentiary representative comrade Surits insisted before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the right of each of the parties to design their own representative bodies without limiting the number of employees, guided by the spirit of the adopted agreement. In the subsequent correspondence, the ministry was finally compelled, in a note from Mizan 21, 1299 (October 14, 1920), to agree with the point of view of the plenipotentiary and resolve the above issue.
According to the agreement, both sides pledged to respect the independence of Bukhara and Khiva, no matter what government was established there. However, during the revolutionary struggle in Bukhara, the local agents of Kabul did not observe the necessary neutrality. Guided by the spirit of the treaty, Comrade Surits, the plenipotentiary representative in Kabul, made an energetic protest on September 21, 1920 on behalf of the Russian government, which, by the way, reads: finds the only explanation for these deplorable facts in the lack of contact between the Afghan central government and its local representatives. " In his reply, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 30th of the summit of 1299 (September 22, 1920) expressed its readiness “to proceed ... to the investigation and clarification of these actions in their fundamental form. " In the negotiations that took place then in February 1921, an agreement was reached, in development of the treaty, on the legal status of Russian subjects in Afghanistan.
Thus, the treaty, even before its ratification, was actually accepted by both parties in regulating the issues that arose.
Among other major issues resolved with our mediation in the same period of time, it should be noted that the government of Kabul recognized the revolutionary Bukhara government (note from 5 akrab - October 26). It should be noted that before the arrival of the representative of the revolutionary government * of Bukhara in Kabul, we simultaneously defended Bukhara interests in Afghanistan. In November 1920, the Minister of Foreign Affairs appealed to the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR with a note dated 9 kaus 1299 (i.e., November 29, 1920), in which he insists on the soonest approval of the treaty by Russia and speaks of the fundamental coherence of the policies of both states. "The Emir government sees real proof of this in the fact that Russia is committed to protecting and ensuring the full independence of Bukhara and Khiva."
In January 1921, the British took decisive steps to disrupt the Russian-Afghan treaty, opposing it with their own draft, which basically boiled down to the following provisions proposed by the extraordinary commissioner of Great Britain Sir Henry Dobbs: 1) the preservation of exclusively trade relations with Russia, i.e. cancellation of the agreement of September 13, 1920; 2) refusal of Afghans from patronage of border tribes, ethnographically and religiously related to Afghanistan and serving as a hotbed of continuous uprisings against the Anglo-Indian authorities. In turn, the British offer duty-free transit of goods to the Afghan government, the exchange of representations, moreover, directly with London; Reconsideration of the issue of delimitation in the abolition of the Rawalpinda Agreement, which obliges Afghans to accept the decisions of the commission, made up of the English alone. Finally, there followed the promise of extensive material assistance.
In the ensuing negotiations, the main point of disagreement was the issue of border tribes. The government of Kabul initially insisted on a plebiscite of all the tribes occupying the border along the Durand line, that is, the tribes included in the sphere of the English protectorate in 1894 (Afridia, Mahsuds, Wazirs). Subsequently, the Afghans agreed to limit their demands by establishing a common judicial system among the tribes with Afghanistan, and by the British recognizing the head of Afghan Muslims as the spiritual patron of these tribes. But the British remained adamant, although initially outwardly they seemed to accept the Afghan proposal, demanding, however, that the plebiscite be extended to Afghan territory. The British also rejected the demand of the Afghans to provide them with a free port in one of the coastal cities of India.
A situation arose in which the small Anglophile groups of the Kabul merchants, economically connected with India, campaigned in favor of rapprochement with England, in which the British mission in Kabul could give them support and guidance. On the other hand, the supporters of the Afghan national policy, having before their eyes the fact of the defeat of the border tribes of the same faith, more and more decisively inclined to the idea of the need for close cooperation with Soviet Russia. Under the influence of these two conflicting conflicting tendencies, the country's foreign policy, which was full of fluctuations in the first months of 1921, developed in Afghanistan. In February, negotiations with Britain were temporarily interrupted.
On February 28, 1921, the signing took place in Moscow in a slightly modified form and soon then the ratification of the Russian-Afghan agreement of September 13, 1920.
The main features of this treaty are as follows: both sides recognize the independence of each other and undertake to honor it (Art. 1). The embassies and consulates of both sides enjoy all diplomatic privileges in accordance with the customs of international law. The parties give mutual consent to the opening of consulates by each party at the points stipulated by the agreement. Russia agrees to free and duty-free transit through its territory of any kind of cargo purchased by Afghanistan both in Russia and abroad (Article 6). The parties mutually agree on the actual independence and freedom of Bukhara and Khiva, whatever form of government exists there (Article 8). To strengthen friendly relations, the RSFSR agrees to provide Afghanistan with the material assistance it needs to raise its culture and industry (Article 9).
Already in March 1921, a red flag fluttered over all the representative institutions of the RSFSR in Afghanistan.
* In the text - representations.
Translated By Contributers of ML Blog
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