former Erivan Governorate. In 1924, the area was officially declared as the Nakhchivan ASSR subordinate to the Azerbaijan SSR. The creation of the new autonomous republic allowed Azerbaijan to share a 18 km boundary with the Aras corridor, which was now controlled by Turkey. Impact on Turkish-Iranian relations The Kars treaty also impacted Turkish-Iranian relations. The annexation of Surmali and the Aras corridor now gave Turkey a slightly more extensive border with Iran. In the late 1920s, the Ararat rebellion erupted in the vicinity of Mount Ararat. As Turkey attempted to quash the rebellion, the Kurdish rebels fled across the Iranian border to the eastern flank of Lesser Ararat, which they used "as a haven against the state in their uprising". In response, Turkey crossed the border with Iran and occupied the region. The Lesser Ararat area became the subject of discussion between Turkish and Iranian diplomats in border delineation talks. In Tehran in 1932, Iran agreed to cede the area to Turkey in exchange for some territories further south. However, the agreement was delayed by objections from some Iranian diplomats, who viewed the Lesser Ararat area as strategically important and questioned the validity of the Treaty of Kars. The diplomats felt that Turkey did not have a legitimate claim to the territory of Surmali, which had been part of Iran before it was ceded to Imperial Russia by the Treaty of Turkmenchay. In addition, because the wording of the Turkmenchay Treaty was vague, they advocated annexing parts of the area. After a constructive meeting with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara in 1934, Reza Shah, who initially wanted to annex the Aras corridor, finally ordered his diplomats to drop any objections and to accept the new border agreements. Attempted annulment by Soviet Union After World War II, the Soviet Union attempted to annul the treaty and to regain its lost territory. According to Nikita Khrushchev, Deputy Premier Lavrentiy Beria goaded his fellow Georgian Joseph Stalin into taking action on the issue, insisting on the return of historical Georgian territories. Stalin eventually agreed, and on 7 June 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov informed the Turkish ambassador in Moscow that the provinces of Kars, Ardahan and Artvin should be returned to Soviet Union in the name of both the Georgian and the Armenian Socialist Soviet Republics. Ankara found itself in a difficult position since it wanted good relations with Moscow but