Waterways in the Soviet-Turkish Relations and their Impact on the American-Turkish Rapprochement 1925 – 1956

Abstract

With the control of the Ottoman Empire over Istanbul in 1453, it was able to impose its hegemony on the Bosphorus strait in which the corridor has become a problem faced by Czarist Russia until 1774 when it got, under the Treaty of Kodgk_ Kinarja, the legalization for its commercial ships the freedom of navigation and passage through the straits. The continued until the year 1805 after the cancellation of the agreement by the Ottoman Empire that characterized relations with the nature of hostility and tension between the two countries until the end of the first World war (1914- 1918), due to the ambitions of the Russian czars in the southward expansion to reach the warm waters. With the outbreak of the October Revolution in 1917, it opened a new page in relations between the Turkish National Movement (1919-1922) and the Soviets in light of flowing military aid to that movement. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the relations between the two countries continued until March 19, 1945, when the Soviets announced an end to the treaty of Neutrality and Non-Aggression), which was held between the two parts in 1925. Thus, the tension began to dominate the scene of the Turkish-Soviet relations in the light of developments in the Cold War that led to the growing of Turkish-US relations, especially since the latter tried to take advantage of the geopolitical location of Turkey to stand against the Soviet expansion in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.