Although the occupation of Iran was scheduled to end after the war at the Potsdam Conference following Germany's surrender, Stalin objected to Churchill's proposal for an early allied withdrawal from Iran ahead of the agreed-upon schedule set at the Teheran Conference. Following VJ Day in September 1945, first the United States and then the United Kingdom withdrew their forces within the treaty-stipulated period. The Soviets not only violated the March 2 withdrawal deadline; in that time they had expanded their military presence southward. By mid-December 1945, with the use of troops and secret police, they had set up two pro-Soviet "People's Democratic Republics" within Iranian territory, the Azerbaijan People's Republic headed by Sayyid Jafar Pishevari and the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad under President Pesheva Qazi Muhammad. It is another example of the Soviet Union's appropriation of Imperial Russia's geopolitical ambitions, as the disputed zone had already been occupied by Imperial Russia 35 years before, in the 1911 Russian invasion of Tabriz.