The treaty consists of 18 clauses, the first of which states that war between Turkey and Armenia is ended. The boundary between the two states is similar to today’s Soviet–Turkish border, that is, roughly, along the Araxes river in the south, then north along the Arpa Chai, to Mount Akbaba. Nakhichevan, Shakhtakhti and Sharur were to be disputed land, whose future was to be decided later by a plebiscite* (article 2); likewise too the region between the old 1914 frontier and the new one, if Armenia requested it (article 3).

Now let’s jump to Vratsian’s asking for Turkish aid during the late stages of the 1921 February Uprising by the Dashnak leadership. This was when the forces of the Red Army had reorganized its forces and was tightening the noose around Yerevan.

We read on Page 325 of Christopher Walker’s “Armenia-Durvival of a Nation” that:

The following day Yerevan was shelled, and on 1 March a Soviet attack was repulsed with heavy losses.263 The same day Vratsian, clutching at burning straws, asked the Turkish political agent in Yerevan to pass on a request for Turkish military aid.264 Armenia stood by the treaty of Alexandropol, he said. No reply came from Ankara; the Turks were keener on getting good terms from the Russians at the forthcoming Moscow conference than giving aid to the anti-Soviet rebellion in Armenia which would jeopardise their position.*

NOW HERE’S THE MAIN POINT WHICH ARMENIAN ANALYSTS SEEM TO GET MUDDLED.

The Treaty of Moscow was signed one week later by Turkey and Soviet Russia – NO ARMENIAN REPRESENTATIVES ATTENDED.

The frontier between Turkey and Armenia was exactly the same as for the treaty of Alexandropol; if there were any differences, they were minimal. Kars and Ardahan went to Turkey, and the new frontier was to be from Mount Akbaba south along the Arpa Chai (Akhurian) and then east along the Araxes. Surmalu, with its main town Igdir, never Turkish except intermittently in the eighteenth century, went to Turkey, as did Mount Ararat. The district of Nakhichevan was to be autonomous territory under the protection of Azerbaijan.

The Kars Conference, ended on October 13, 1921, and the subsequent Kars treaty RATIFIED the Treaty of Moscow.

KARS WAS SIGNED BY SOVIET AREMENIA – Askanaz Mravian

But the real spokesman for the Caucasian states was Yakov Ganetzky (or Hanecki), Chicherin’s own representative.

On the two matters of Armenian concern – the frontier with Turkey and the status of Nakhichevan – the Kars and Moscow treaties were the same (and the border itself was the same as that laid down in the treaty of Alexandropol).

Thus, if the 1st Armenian Republic signed the Treaty of Alexandropol, even though the ARF had effectively handed over power to the Bolsheviks, and Soviet Armenia signed the Treaty of Kars which ratified the Treaty of Moscow…

ARE WE NOW SAYING THAT THE 3RD ARMENIAN REPUBLIC REJECTS THESE DOCUMENTS AND IN FACT DOES NOT VIEW ITSELF AS THE LEGAL SUCCESSOR STATE TO THE 1ST AND 2ND ARMENIAN REPUBLICS??