Upon realizing the international climate would make diplomatic control over the straits as well as Turkey in general difficult, the Soviet Union made moves towards thawing relations with the country in a last-ditch effort to have a piece of the Middle East under its wing. When Turkey joined Western aligned NATO in 1952, these hopes were dashed.[25] The Montreux Treaty of 1936, with revisions, is still in place in the present day between the successor states of the USSR and Turkey.[26]