How relevant is the Treaty of Moscow to international legal norms?

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Treaty of Moscow is invalid in many aspects, the most important of them being that it was concluded between two unrecognized parties of international law: Kemalist Turkey and Bolshevist Russia. In 1921, Turkey was still called the Ottoman Empire and was ruled by Sultan Mehmed VI Wahid ed-din. Russia was then ruled by Bolshevists. The Turkish Republic, with which the Moscow Treaty was concluded, was proclaimed on Oct. 29, 1923. 90 years later all these “trifles” have been forgotten for some reason, and Armenia continues insisting on denunciation of the treaty that does not actually exist. International law, which Turkey and Azerbaijan so often refer to, should logically deprive the contract of efficacy. However, everything is exactly the other way round. Alas, the contract led to the international-legal outcome of the conquest and partition of the Republic of Armenia between the RSFSR, Turkey and Azerbaijan. At least, so it is perceived in our time. Even then, Turkey wanted to drive the last remaining Armenians out of their historical homeland; Russia saw in them undesirable elements.

The Bolshevists did everything in their power to protect themselves against the East, and for the sake of it they sacrificed Armenia that was of no value to the Kremlin rulers. “World Revolution” is a very convenient term for winning and acquisition of friends who you need at the moment; then they are no longer necessary. The main thing for Moscow was to support Ataturk. And it is exactly what she actually did! Five-million-ruble worth of gold and mountains of weapons were given to the “national liberation struggle of the Turkish people”. One just wonders against whom this “national liberation struggle” was led. You needn’t know much about eastern policy to understand that it was directed against the Christian population of the Ottoman Turkey, i.e. Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians. The massacre of 1922 in Izmir (Smyrna) and the re-exile of the Armenians returned from Cilicia were carried out on Russian money and with Russian weapons. In 1919, tens of thousands of Armenians from Syria, Lebanon and Palestine returned to Cilicia, where the French rule was being established on the basis of a mandate. For a while it seemed that protected by France, Cilicia would be able to become a state, completely independent of Turkey. Many Armenians, of course, remember the French-Armenian brotherhood arisen in Cilicia during the Crusades. Unfortunately, the experience of French government in Cilicia was doomed to short life and led to consequences, disastrous for the Armenian repatriates.

This is why one shouldn’t be surprised at the intimacy of Russian-Turkish relations. Turkey and Russia need each other and it will always be so. Let us not forget that at the time of the Armenian Genocide Russian diplomats in Constantinople hardly intervened in the “internal affairs” of the Young Turks. For Turkish investment Russia is a boundless territory and share of the Turkish capital in Russia is growing year by year. Turkish firms have a share in the construction of almost all of the major objects in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The Muslim factor should also be taken into account – there are 20-30 million Muslims living in Russia, this number rising continually.

Let’s recall another fact. On October 30, 1918 on board the HMS Agamemnon in Moudros harbor on the Greek island of Lemnos the Armistice of Moudros was signed. Under the armistice, the Black Sea straits were opened to Allied navies; the Allies were granted the right to occupy the forts controlling the Straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles; the Ottomans surrendered their remaining garrisons in Hejaz, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and withdrew them from Iran, Cilicia and the Caucasus; the Allies were also granted the right to occupy “in case of disorder” the six Armenian provinces in Anatolia and to seize “any strategic point” in case of a threat to Allied security. Under these circumstances the Bolshevist Russia urgently needed an agreement with Turkey on any level, in order to neutralize the Entente, while Mustafa Kemal was in need of weapons and money.

What Putin and Erdogan will agree on at their upcoming meeting is not so important and interesting. The main thing for Armenia is that this agreement should not cause great harm. Russia is now trying to control resolution of problems in the Caucasus, which also includes normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations. However, hardly is it possible that Moscow will be able to set the process in motion. Too many are the totally unsolvable problems proceeding from Turkey.