Established the borders between Turkey and the Transcaucasian Soviet republics, borders that largely persist for Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan today.
Key Facts
- Date signed
- 13 October 1921
- Signing city
- Kars, Turkey
- Predecessor treaty
- Treaty of Moscow (March 1921)
- Earlier predecessor
- Treaty of Alexandropol (December 1920)
- Transcaucasian signatories
- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (Soviet republics)
- Turkish signatory
- Grand National Assembly of Turkey
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following the Russian Civil War and Bolshevik consolidation of power in the Caucasus, competing territorial claims between the nascent Turkish nationalist government and the Soviet Transcaucasian republics needed resolution. Earlier agreements, including the Treaty of Alexandropol (1920) and the Treaty of Moscow (March 1921), had partially addressed these disputes but required a broader multilateral settlement.
On 13 October 1921, representatives of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian Soviet Socialist Republics, with Russian SFSR participation, signed the Treaty of Kars. The agreement formally delimited the borders between Turkey and the three Transcaucasian republics, ceding to Turkey territories including the Surmalu region, which had previously been part of the Erivan Khanate before Russian annexation.
The treaty fixed borders that have largely endured as the international frontiers of modern Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Most territories ceded to Turkey had been acquired by Imperial Russia from the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, and the treaty effectively reversed those gains. The Transcaucasian signatory republics subsequently became constituent parts of the Soviet Union following the December 1922 Union Treaty.
Political Outcome
Borders between Turkey and the Transcaucasian Soviet republics formally established, largely persisting as modern state boundaries.
Disputed borders between Turkish nationalists and Transcaucasian Soviet republics following collapse of Imperial Russia and Ottoman Empire
Fixed borders ceding former Imperial Russian territorial gains to Turkey, stabilizing the Caucasus frontier