In 1946, the USSR claimed part of Turkey’s territory, with Lavrentiy Beria claiming the Ottoman Empire had stolen it from Georgia. The claim was abandoned after Stalin’s death in 1953.

Posted by GustavoistSoldier

17 Comments

  1. NetHistorical5113 on

    This is actually the main reason why Turkey sided with the Americans and joined NATO during the Cold War. There were other reasons but this was the main reason

  2. That was the most important thing that pushed Turkey to take sides with the West and eventually join NATO. Turkey also sent soldiers for the Korean war (to the United Nations and US side of course), that also contributed to the acceptance to NATO.

    Also on a interesting side note, Turkey and Greece joined NATO simultaneously.

  3. There is an interesting aspect of an alternate timeline that this was materialized. In the state censuses of the USSR in the 1930s they estimate around 300,000 Greeks, mainly Pontian Greeks that had fled to Russia during and in the aftermath of the Pontic Genocide (1914-1923). They had been greatly persecuted in the 1930s-1940s, and mass deported into Central Asia, but it would make sense, as if they did that, they would automatically and immediately have fierce supporters in that occupied area, those very same inhabitants that had been genocided and ethnically cleansed from that very land just a generation earlier. It would also be a huge propaganda card against Greece and their inclusion within the NATO, as well as a tremendous leverage for blackmail.   

  4. Hour_Insurance_1897 on

    Why the soviets didn’t also lay claims on Armenia’s lost territory, as they did with Georgia’s?

  5. ~in an alternate universe where USSR annexed that territory. After the fall of USSR would that be part of modern day Georgia?