After the end of the Crimean War, the question of Bessarabia became a matter of European interest. At the initiative of Austrian Foreign Minister Count Buol proposed that Southern Bessarabia should be in the possession of the Moldavian Principality. Russia agreed to this humiliating clause on January 15, 1856. However, Russian diplomacy has made considerable efforts to preserve this territory. The Russian diplomats came up with the proposal that southern Bessarabia be changed with Kars, a territory belonging to the Ottoman Empire. The French Government sustained such proposal. The Paris Peace Congress in February-March 1856 did not solve the problem of Bessarabia, because the allies ha divergent points of view.