The Soviet Union demanded eastern Anatolian territory including regions around Trebizond, Trabzon, Gumushane, and Giresun districts along the Terme River. The plans also covered most of Turkey's Black Sea region and the eastern part of Anatolia containing Erzurum, Van, Mush, and Bitlis.
Moscow made this move as part of an effort to promote friendly relations with the transcontinental country following Stalin's death in 1953. No further attempts were made to reclaim eastern Anatolian territory after this point.
Academics Simon Janashia and Niko Berdzenishvili authored the letters that appeared in print between the 14th and 20th of that month. Communist publications like Zarya Vostoka, Pravda, and Izvestia carried these arguments.
Approximately 150,000 ethnic Armenians migrated to Soviet Armenia after World War II from countries including Syria, Lebanon, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, and France. These migrants came from Western Armenian communities seeking to return to ancestral lands.
American officials viewed Turkey as necessary to defend against potential Soviet expansion and saw Soviet territorial claims as expansionist and reminiscent of Nazi irredentism over Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia. The State Department concluded that earlier support for Armenia since President Wilson's term between 1913 and 1921 had expired.