From Ankara to Bled Marshal Tito's Visit to Greece (June 1954) and the Formation of the Balkan Alliance

Primary tabs

Choose the citation style.
Search for this publication on Google Scholar
Sfetas, S. (2011). From Ankara to Bled Marshal Tito's Visit to Greece (June 1954) and the Formation of the Balkan Alliance, 133-163. doi:10.2298/BALC1142133S
Details
Title

From Ankara to Bled Marshal Tito's Visit to Greece (June 1954) and the Formation of the Balkan Alliance

Subtitle
Author

Spyridon, Sfetas

Journal

Balcanica

Volume
Issue

XLII

Start page

133

End page

163

ISSN

0350-7653

ISBN
DOI

10.2298/BALC1142133S

URL

http://dais.sanu.ac.rs/handle/123456789/4327

Date

2011-2019/08/12/16:03:30

Abstract

Tito's visit to Greece contributed to the Balkan Pact's transformation into a military alliance. Despite the establishment of Soviet-Yugoslav diplomatic relations in 1953, the Soviet Union made no political move towards normalizing bilateral relations. For security reasons Tito visited Athens (June 1954) to promote Yugoslavia's military cooperation with Greece and Turkey without ruling out Yugoslavia's accession to NATO. But the Soviet leadership, fearing Yugoslavia's involvement in western defense mechanisms, sent the message to Belgrade that it was ready to recognize Stalin's blunders towards Yugoslavia. Thus, Tito applied a policy of equidistance between East and West and refused to link up the Balkan Alliance with NATO.

Keywords