For the Armenian Question, the period after 1923 represents a phase in which tension is to remain low for both the Turkish-Armenian communities and the intervening states. The fact that the Armenian Question was resolved at the Treaty of Lausanne as desired by the Turkish side and thus legally closed, and the newly founded Turkish Republic establishing high-level relations with Soviet Russia are factors that have been influential in this period of relative calmness. Still, the Soviet Union’s influences on Soviet Armenia and cyclical developments have resulted in the relations becoming tense, especially with the Second World War. Even though the relations once again eased off following Stalin’s death and the Soviet Union’s renunciation of its land requests from Turkey, Russia did not give up on using the Armenian Question against Turkey.
In 1965, debates on genocide were finally brought to the fore and through the terrorist organization ASALA, established by the Soviet Union in Lebanon in the 1970s; assassinations were carried out against Turkish diplomats and persons of foreign origin. Thus, the relations that had been irretrievably harmed and were already weak came to a breaking point. The situation has remained unchanged following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fact that allegations of genocide were present in Armenia’s declaration of independence and its constitution, and that the Armenian diaspora wanted to lure Turkey into an international trap with the question of Karabakh and the attacks on Nakhchivan has reinforced the unfavorable fate of the Turkish-Armenian relations.
Even though the debates surrounding this period are quite limited, it is possible to list the headlines of the narratives and analyses as such: The foundation of the Republic of Turkey, Turkish-Soviet Friendship and Non-Aggression Pact, inviting of the Armenians into Soviet Armenia, Soviet Union’s requests for land from Eastern Anatolia, Montreux Convention, Second World War and Turkey’s neutrality, Catholichos of Echmiadzin, Potsdam Conference, Armenian diaspora, Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine, NATO-Turkey relations, Warsaw Pact, emergence of the debates of genocide, Armenian terrorist organizations, Armenian propaganda, Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkish-Armenians relations.