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  Selected Secret Documents from Soviet Foreign Policy Documents Archives - 1919 to 1941

Concentrated on 1st and  2nd WW Correspondence and Meetings related to Turkey, Balkans and Iran, with some additions from Afghanistan and India.

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Telegram the plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Romania to the peopleʹs commissariat of foreign affairs of the USSR. May 18, 1937

May 18, 1937

Yesterday Aras visited me. The main purpose of Arasʹs visit to Bucharest was, he said, to push the negotiations on a trade agreement, which is of particular importance for the Turks because the Romanians agreed to supply the Turks with oil products in exchange for the Turkish stamps frozen in berlin. Aras believes that all the issues related to the negotiations have been settled, and he is very satisfied (this is not the opinion of the chairman of the Romanian delegation Crist, who told me yesterday that the negotiations rested on a number of unresolvable differences and, apart from Antonescuʹs “empty” promise, settle ”, nothing is settled).

Further, Aras, after meeting with the king and the minister, noted a noticeable improvement in Romanian‐Soviet relations. The Romanians, they say, are now looking for a formula that could serve as the basis for an agreement with the USSR. This formula should: 1) not be a pact of mutual assistance, 2) give official recognition [annexation] of Bessarabia and show the world the excellent state of Romanian‐Soviet relations. They have not yet found this formula. At one time they hoped to achieve this through the multilateral black sea pact, but they became convinced that it was unrealistic, since Turkey would not sign such a pact without the USSR, just as it would not sign the Mediterranean pact without England. Aras went on to say that the Turkish security system is important only with the USSR ‐ for the black sea region, with England ‐ for the Mediterranean region. Without them and against them, Turkey will not do anything: in the black sea basin, the Turks will go only from the USSR, in the Mediterranean ‐ only with England. The recording of the conversation, which lasted an hour, will be sent by mail.

From the conversation it was possible to understand: 1) that Romania did not want and does not want to either increase its obligations on the little entente, or sign a pact with the French, wanting to wait and not wanting to ʺprovoke third powersʺ, and 2) that the Turks had a hand in this. Aras had been persuading me for a long time that real assistance to Yugoslavia in the event of German aggression against

Czechoslovakia, was impossible, and vice versa, therefore, such a pact, authorized by the little entente, was pointless. Further, Aras stated that only the simultaneous signing of the following two pacts: 1) Locarno and 2) eastern, consisting of France, the USSR, the little entente and the Balkan entente, Germany and Poland (or without the last two), can ensure peace. From this I had to deliberately conclude that the pact France‐lesser entente, as being neither Locarno nor eastern, is dangerous,

Aras is very pleased with the negotiations between Blum and Inonu in Paris and believes that in Geneva, most likely, the Alexandretta Sandjak will be finished. [1]

Ostrovsky

 [1] a copy of the telegram was sent to m. M. Litvinov in Paris.