 He continued to work on issues of security regarding some of the principal frontiers, including the Black Sea/Mediterranean Straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles (Turkish Straits).Palestine, at that time under the British Mandate of 1922, was the responsibility of Samylovskii as Head of the Near East Department.During and immediately after World War II the Palestine question was on the USSR's diplomatic agenda through the NKID's Commission for the Preparation of Peace Agreements and Postwar Settlements during 1943-45, chaired by Maxim Litvinov.