CLAIMS BY RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24768, 8 January 1946, Page 5

CLAIMS BY RUSSIA

Turkish Premier Replies WILL NOT YIELD TERRITORIES (N.Z- Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) ANKARA, January 7. The Turkish Prime Minister iSukru Saracogiu) officially denied that Russia had any right to the Turkish border provinces ot Kars and Ardahan. (A claim to these provinces was advanced by two Georgian professors in a letter published in all Russian newspapers just before Christmas. The professors asserted that Turkey had seized these provinces.) Sukru Saracogiu declared that the provinces had been ceded to Tsarist Russia in 1378 after the RussianTurkish war. and that after the Great War they had decided their own fate by a plebiscite, as agreed between Russia and Turkey. The plebiscite gave the provinces to Turkey by 85,000 votes to 1900. Replying to the claim that the provinces were taken by Turkey when Russia was very weak, Sukru Saracogiu said: “In the days when Russia could be regarded as weak, Turkey could be regarded as being so weak as to be non-existent.” Commenting on the claim that the areas should be given up as a home for Armenians, he added: “Not a single Armenian lives in these areas. The Georgian professors have probably tried to translate Hitler’s Lebensraum theory.” He then quoted census figures to show that the population of the disputed areas contained a large majority of Turks, who far outnumbered any Georgians or Russians. In language and culture the region was one with Turkey. He added that many of the Russians in the region had fled there for protection from the Tsarist and Soviet regimes.

Speakers at a gathering of 1000 university students yelled: “We shall fight to guard Turkish territory if it is attacked by anybody.” Observers describe the meeting as a Strictly pro-Turkish demonstration without a word being spoken against any foreign Power. The Minister of Education urged the students to disband and two organisers of the demonstration were arrested. [Recently Moscow newspapers printed a letter by two leading Georgian scholars demanding “the return of territory seized by Turkey.” The letter stated that the Georgian people had never relinquished this territory, which must be returned The area lies south of the oil port of Batum and the Black Sea end of the Baku pipeline. The demands caused comment m diplomatic circles, diplomats recalling earlier statements from Soviet Armenia concerning Kars and other Armenian areas which form part of Turkey]