At Kars, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey signs a treaty of friendship with the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian Socialist Soviet Republics, with the participation of the Russian SFSR. The date of the instrument is 13 October 1921. The authentic texts are French and Russian, in five copies. The signatories are Kâzım Karabekir, Veli Bey, Muhtar Bey, Memduh Şevket Bey, Askanaz Mravian, Poghos Makintsian, Behboud Shahtahtinsky, Shalva Eliava, Alexander Svanidze and Yakov Ganetsky. It is not the Treaty of Moscow of 16 March 1921, expressly excepted from Article I. It is not Alexandropol of December 1920.

Article I: prior treaties concerning these territories, and those with third states concerning the Transcaucasian republics, are void; excepted is Moscow, 16 March 1921. Article II: the parties recognize no act imposed against their will; the Soviet republics recognize no act concerning Turkey that the Grand National Assembly does not recognize; Turkey, in this Treaty, means the territories of the National Pact of 28 January 1920; Turkey does the same for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Article III: the capitulations, incompatible with sovereignty, are abolished.

Article IV: Turkey’s north-east frontier, according to the Russian General Staff map 1:210,000, begins at the village of Sarp on the Black Sea, passes by Khedis Mga, the watershed of Shavshet–Kana Dagh, follows the former northern administrative borders of the sanjaks of Ardahan and Kars, then the thalweg of the Arpachai and of the Arax as far as the mouth of the Lower Kara Su. If text and map disagree, the text prevails. A mixed delimitation commission, with a representative of the RSFSR, sets the markers.

Article V: the region of Nakhchivan, within the limits of Annex III, is an autonomous territory under the protection of Azerbaijan. Article VI: Turkey cedes to Georgia suzerainty over the town and port of Batum and the territory north of the Article IV frontier that formed part of the Batum district, on two conditions: a greater measure of local administrative autonomy, cultural and religious rights, and an agrarian system in conformity with the population’s wishes; free Turkish transit through the port, without customs duties or special charges.

Articles VII–VIII: border crossing and summer and winter pastures between Turkey and Georgia, through a mixed commission. Article IX: the regime of the Black Sea and the Straits, to a later conference of the littoral states, without encroaching on the sovereignty of Turkey and of Istanbul. Article X: neither admits on its territory organizations claiming to be the government of the other, or groups making war against it. Article XIII: inhabitants of territories whose sovereignty changes may leave freely with their goods if they relinquish nationality.

Article XV: a complete amnesty for offences on the Caucasian front. Article XVI: repatriation of former military and civilian prisoners within two months. Article XVII: railways, telegraph, free transit of persons and commodities, under each party’s regulations. Article XX: ratification; exchange of acts at Yerevan; Articles VI, XIV, XV, XVI, XVIII and XIX take effect on signature.

It is not the Treaty of Sèvres, which Article II keeps at a distance if the Assembly does not recognize it. It is not the Republic of Turkey, proclaimed in 1923. It is not the Soviet Union of December 1922. Annex II: Turkey withdraws the line of blockhouses eight versts from the Alexandropol–Yerevan railway on the Arpachai and four on the Arax; no fortification and no regular army beyond what order requires.

The Soviet claims of 1945 to Kars, Ardahan and Artvin are not this text. The frontier of Article IV remains the line signed at Kars.

Image: old governor mansion, Kars, 1883, place of signature; Adam Jones, 2011; CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Treaty of Kars. Treaty text: Kars Antlaşması, 13 October 1921 (Wikisource).