From Friendship and Brotherhood to Trauma: 1922 Embassy Crisis in Turkish-Soviet Relations

Abstract

Political relations between the government of Ankara and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) began on June 3, 1920. The Treaty of Moscow, signed in 1921, was the first agreement in the history of Turkish-Russian relations in which one side did not use military force against the other. In spite of a friendly relationships between the Government of Grand National Assembly of Turkiye (GNAT) and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), on April 21 1922, All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (CHEKA) raided the flat belonging to Turkish Embassy to Moscow on the grounds that espionage activities were conducted by the Embassy and assaulted and arrested the staff of military attache, causing a diplomatic crisis. Ambassador Ali Fuat Pasha protested due to the violation of international law, as well as the fact that the apartment and personnel who had diplomatic immunity were damaged as a result of the incident. Since the crisis could not be resolved in Moscow, and the Soviet side did not apologize, the Ankara government recalled Ambassador Ali Fuat Pasha. The "Embassy Crisis", which can be called the most important crisis that the government of the TurkishGrand National Assembly faced in relations with Soviet Russia in the early 1920s, ended with an apology from the Soviet side. The time period of this study is limited to the period from April 21 to August 15, 1922. The crisis in Turkish-Soviet relations was commonly referred to in sources under titles such as "Ali Fuat Incident, Military Attache's Raid, Moscow Incident." The search of an apartment belonging to the Turkish Embassy by CHEKA directly led to a diplomatic problem. Since this crisis is a diplomatic issue that directly concerns the Turkish Embassy in Moscow, it would be more accurate to call it an embassy crisis. Turkish foreign policy literature argues that the Moscow embassy crisis should also be considered one of the foreign policy crises since the event is not currently considered a crisis. The aim of present study is to look for answers to the questions of how crisis management between the parties was realized by examining the causes, development and results of the crisis that GNAT faced with its main friend and supporter, Soviet Russia, while passing through an extraordinary period.