«We Are Selfish; We Will Fight Only for Ourselves...» V.P. Potemkin’s Mission to Ankara (04.29–05.06.1939) and Turkish Policy of Forming a Security Belt Near National Borders in the Mid-1930s

Abstract

In the context of growing military tension in Europe in the second half of the 1930s and the eventual Italian threat, the Turkish leadership was looking for ways to ensure national interests and push the threat of war away from Turkish borders. The system of international military-political alliances and bilateral pacts was considered by Turkish diplomats as a sufficient guarantee of sovereignty and preventing the advance of war to Turkish territory. One of the trends was a change in Turkey’s foreign policy orientation from relying only on the Soviet Union to connections with England. The fact that Germany remained the main trade and economic partner of the Turkish Republic also had a significant impact. In the context of growing political tension in Europe and the division of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet government proposed holding mutual consultations on security issues and possible opposition to the aggressor. On April 29, 1939, Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs V.P. Potemkin was sent to Ankara. The main topic of discussion in Ankara was the conclusion of a multilateral pact of mutual assistance and security against the backdrop of growing German-Italian expansion. Despite the assistance provided by V.P. Potemkin, the negotiations in Ankara left the Soviet leadership with a taste of understatement and a feeling of veiled bargaining, giving a clear understanding that in the coming world war, Turkey, despite the system of international defensive pacts built by its leadership along the perimeter of the country, would be guided by the principles of national selfishness.