Turkey at a Crossroads: The Soviet Threat and Postwar Realignment, 1945–1946.

During World War II, he was in charge of government propaganda at the foreign ministry until 1944, at which point he returned to Moscow, this time as ambassador.[23] He knew Russian and even published a book in the Soviet Union.[24] Precisely because he had first-hand experience of Moscow's relations with Ankara, he knew that the whole point of his meeting with Molotov in March was about testing waters. In Iran as well, reports of Soviet troop movements toward the Turkish frontier were promptly communicated to the Ankara government, which convinced the Turkish leadership that "the Soviet Union would soon be in a position to strike Turkey." He told his Soviet counterpart that the Turkish side was asking for "written guarantees from Moscow so that they could convince their citizens in eastern Anatolia and in Thrace that Soviet Russia would not invade their lands."[63] Eden also told Molotov that the Turkish government was convinced that Soviet Russia would not leave the Balkans for at least twenty to twenty-five years, if somehow they managed to enter Romania and Bulgaria. Molotov told Sarper that "the safety of 200 million Soviet citizens cannot rely on the good-will of Turkey", and that the Ankara government left Moscow in doubt throughout the war, mainly because Turkey, as the sole custodian of the Straits, lacked the means for a proper defense of the Black Sea. [Extracted from the article]