The Soviet Land Demands from Türkiye: Kars, Ardahan and Artvin Issue, 1945–1953

In 1945, the USSR asked Türkiye for the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin in order to be able to make a new alliance agreement. How and to what extent these requests, which never became formal, were made has been widely debated. This study primarily aims to shed light on these debates. Additionally, the debates in question have two dimensions that affect Turkish historiography. The first is to confirm, regardless of the conceptualizations made, that the USSR did have territorial demands from Türkiye. Accordingly, the relevant ideas are shaped based on the existence of these demands. The second dimension consists of the opinions of those who claim that the existence of the demands is merely speculative. These groups generally question the existence of demands. They argue that these demands are instrumentalized by certain factions or outright reject them. Therefore, the issue of Soviet territories has never lost its significance. This study, consequently, aims to contribute to these discussions. In this study, these two views will be examined separately as a method; newspapers, Turkish state archives, memoirs of political elites and bureaucrats from the relevant countries, as well as, of course, secondary sources have also been used.