The Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828)

In 1826 Abbas Mirza started a war to win back the lands lost at Gulistan and was successful in the first months. But after a defeat near Ganja, the Russian army under General Paskevich took Irevan and Nakhchivan and in October 1827 entered Tabriz.

The treaty was signed on 22 February 1828 in the village of Turkmenchay on the road from Tabriz to Tehran. Crown Prince Abbas Mirza and Asef al-Dowleh signed for the Qajars and Paskevich for Russia. The Irevan and Nakhchivan khanates and the rest of the Talysh khanate passed to Russia, and the border was drawn along the Aras river. The Qajars had to pay an indemnity of 20 million silver roubles and gave broad privileges to Russian merchants and consuls.

Turkmenchay divided the Azerbaijani people between two states on either bank of the Aras; the notions of Northern and Southern Azerbaijan come from this division. Article 15 of the treaty allowed people to migrate, and in the following years Armenians from Iran and the Ottoman lands were resettled in the Irevan, Nakhchivan and Karabakh regions.