Trebizond Peace Conference

The Trebizond Peace Conference was a conference held between 14 March and 13 April 1918 in Trebizond between the Ottoman Empire and a delegation of the Transcaucasian Diet (Transcaucasian Seim) and government. The opening session was on 14 March 1918. The representatives were Rear-Admiral Hüseyin Rauf Bey for the Ottoman Empire, and Akaki Chkhenkeli, Khalil bey Khasmammadov, Alexander Khatisian etc. as the Transcaucasian delegation. The Armistice of Erzincan signed by the Russian and Ottomans in Erzincan on December 5, 1917, ended the armed conflicts between Russia and Ottoman Empire in the Persian Campaign and Caucasus Campaign of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. The armistice was followed by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, between the Russian SFSR and the Central Powers, marking Russia's exit from World War I. The Ottoman Empire and the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic confronted each other as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk imposed borders that conflicted with those claimed by each party. The delegation established by Sejm was regarded by the Ottoman Empire as representing, not a state, but instead the peoples of the region. The Ottoman delegation expressed the wish that ‘Transcaucasia should proclaim its independence and announce its form of government before the negotiations then under way were completed.' The Ottoman Empire wanted to break down the barrier between Anatolian Muslims and Caucasian Muslims and to ‘consolidate the unity between kindred nations.’ The Ottoman Empire’s special tasks in the Caucasus, Rauf Bey reassured, reflected links between the Empire and the Caucasian peoples that were "...not only historical and geographical, but rather ones of blood, flowing from their common past." Ahmed bey Pepinov, an advisor to the Transcaucasian delegation and a member of the Muslim National Council, suggested setting up a fourth, separate administrative unit consisting of the Muslim areas of the Batum and Kars regions.