Siege of Kars (1206–1207)

The Siege of Kars was a siege laid by the Kingdom of Georgia against the Emirate of Kars. It ended with the Georgian victory and annexation of Kars to the Georgian Kingdom.

Background
Sökmen II, the last ruler of the Sultanate of Khlat from the dynasty known after its title, Shah-Armens, died in 1185, which led to decades of struggle over Khlat between various actors. Both Eldiguzids and Saladin of Ayyubid dynasty intervened, although one of Sökmen's mamluks, Beytimur, managed to supersede them through cunning diplomacy. However, this was only beginning of the internal power struggles and external pressures, which ensued over the next years. During this period, a series of mamluks ruled over Khlat and its power rapidly declined. In 1206, the revolution in Khlat made the mamluk Balaban a new ruler, although the people of Khlat offered the town to Artuqid. Meanwhile, Najm al-Din, Ayyubid ruler of Mayyāfāriqīn, besieged Khlat, reviving the claims of his family over the town. However, this siege ended with no success for Ayyubid. At the same time, Georgians, which also contested control over Khlat, decided to take advantage of the turmoil there to annex Kars, which was a dependency of the Sultanate of Khlat. Local Meskhetian forces under Sargis Tmogveli and Shalva Akhaltsikheli had been blockading Kars intermittently for some years, and Queen Tamar of Georga decided to send a special army under David Soslan and brothers Zakaria and Ivane Mkhargrdzelis to assist their efforts.

Siege
According to contemporary Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir, Georgians besieged the fortress of Kars and pressed hard on those within. They collected the revenue of the region for several years. The emir of Kars asked the rulers of Khlat for help, but its rulers did not provide any assistance. After the long siege, the emir of Kars, seeing that no assistance was coming, decided to hand over his domain to Georgians in exchange for a large amount of money and a fiefdom for him. Due to the significance of Kars, Tamar decided not to give it away as a favor as she had done in the case of Ani and Dvin, and she subjected Kars to the royal court, appointing Ivane Akhaltsikheli as it ruler.