TheSecond Cairo Conference of December 4–6, 1943, held inCairo,Egypt, addressedTurkey's possible contribution to theAllies inWorld War II.[1] The meeting was attended by PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt of theUnited States, Prime MinisterWinston Churchill of theUnited Kingdom, and Presidentİsmet İnönü of theRepublic of Turkey.[1]
Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill maintained the opinion that Turkey's continuing neutrality would serve the interests of theAllies by blocking theAxis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of theMiddle East. But the early victories of the Axis until the end of 1942 caused Roosevelt and Churchill to re-evaluate a possible Turkish participation in the war on the side of the Allies.[1] Turkey had maintained a sizeable Army and Air Force throughout the war, and especially Churchill wanted the Turks to open a new front in theBalkans.[1] Prior to the conference in Cairo, on January 30, 1943, Churchill had secretly met with İnönü inside a train wagon at the Yenice station, 23 kilometers outside ofAdana inTurkey, to discuss the issue (seeAdana Conference).[1]
Roosevelt, on the other hand, still believed that a Turkish attack would be too risky and an eventual Turkish failure would have disastrous effects for the Allies.[1]
İnönü knew very well the hardships and losses of territory, population and wealth which his country had to suffer during 11 years of incessant war between 1911 and 1922 (theItalo-Turkish War, theBalkan Wars, theFirst World War, and theTurkish War of Independence), and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could. İnönü also wanted assurances on financial and military aid for Turkey, as well as a guarantee that theUnited States and theUnited Kingdom would stand beside Turkey in case of aSoviet invasion of theTurkish straits after the war, asJoseph Stalin had openly expressed.[1] The fear of a Soviet invasion and Stalin's unconcealed desire to control the Turkish straits eventually caused Turkey to give up its principle ofneutrality in foreign relations and joinNATO in 1952.
Perhaps the biggest reason for Turkey's hesitation to immediately join the war on the side of the Allies was the eventual reduction of the amount of financial and military aid which Churchill had promised in Adana.[1] By December 1943 the Anglo-American authorities felt the overall situation had changed so fundamentally that a much smaller scale of assistance than that provided in the Hardihood Agreement of the spring of 1943 would be necessary.[1] The British proposed a reduced scale of Aid Plan Saturn.[1] The Turks, on the other hand, wished to make certain that upon their entry into the war they would be strong enough to defend their homeland and they doubted that the new plan would fully meet their security needs.[1] Churchill, faced withOperation Overlord only six months away, reluctantly concluded that the resources demanded and the time required for strengthening Turkey could not be conceded.[1] The U.S. Chiefs of Staff and their planners, on the other hand, felt relieved that this possible threat to concentration on Operation Overlord had at last been removed.[1]
At the end of the conference, it was decided that Turkey's neutrality should be maintained.[1] It was also decided to build theIncirlik Air Base near Adana for possibleAllied air operations in the region, but construction works began after the end of the Second World War.[1] Incirlik Air Base later played an important role forNATO during theCold War. Another decision was to postpone Operation Anakim againstJapan inBurma.[1]
Roosevelt and İnönü got what they wanted, while Churchill was disappointed with the result, because he believed that an active Turkish participation in the war would quicken the German defeat by hitting their"soft underbelly" in the southeast.
Turkey eventuallyjoined the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945, after it was announced at theYalta Conference that only the states which were formally at war withGermany andJapan by 1 March 1945 would be admitted to theUnited Nations.[2] However, Turkey didn't directly participate in a military conflict; limiting its participation to providing materials and supplies for the Allies, and imposing political and economic sanctions on the Axis states.
Another discussed issue was the independence ofIndochina from theFrench Colonial Empire, as documented briefly by thePentagon Papers.[3]
