The Soviet Union had long objected to the Montreux Convention of 1936 which gave Turkey sole control over shipping between the Bosphorus strait, an essential waterway for Russian exports. When the 1925 Soviet-Turkish Treaty of Friendship and Neutrality expired in 1945, the Soviet side chose not to renew the treaty. The Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov told the Turks that Georgian and Armenian claims to Turkish-controlled territory would have to be resolved before the conclusion of a new treaty.[2]