![]() ![]() After the death of Stalin, Yugoslav relations with the USSR improved with the country's verbal support for the Soviet intervention in Hungary (contrary to the 1968 one in Czechoslovakia). The country initially oriented itself towards the Western Bloc and signed the 1953 Balkan Pact with the NATO member states of the Kingdom of Greece and Turkey. Belgrade's independent policies raised tensions with Moscow and escalated in the 1948 Tito–Stalin split when Yugoslavia found itself isolated from the rest of the Eastern Bloc countries and in need to redefine its foreign policy. This was the case concerning the issue of the Free Territory of Trieste, Balkan Federation, Greek Civil War, Austro-Slovene conflict in Carinthia and infiltration and relations with the Albanian National Liberation Movement. Yugoslavia did not perceive itself as a client, but as a partner of the USSR, and in many respect pursued its own domestic and foreign policy which sometimes was more assertive than Moscow's policy. Unlike other communist parties in the region, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia was able to rely on local army, police, and relatively high legitimacy among diverse Yugoslav demographic groups. This led the new communist authorities to the belief that contrary to other countries in Eastern Europe, they are entitled to follow a more independent socialist course. Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia and Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia, in Belgrade 1963ĭuring World War II, Yugoslav Partisans liberated their country with only minimal help from the Soviet Red Army and Western allies. The end of the Cold War and the subsequent breakup of Yugoslavia seemed to bring into question the very existence of the Movement, which was preserved only by the politically pragmatic chairmanship of Indonesia. In addition, non-alignment opened further maneuver space in status quo Cold War Europe compared to neutral countries whose foreign policy was often limited by great powers, most notably in the case of Finlandization. As the only European socialist state beyond the Eastern Bloc, and a country economically linked to Western Europe, Yugoslavia championed balancing and cautious equidistance towards United States, Soviet Union and China, in which non-alignment was perceived as a collective guarantee of the country's political independence. Non-alignment and active participation in the movement was the corner-stone of the Cold War foreign policy and ideology of the Yugoslav federation. The city also hosted the Ninth Summit in September 1989. Its capital, Belgrade, was the host of the First Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in early September 1961. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. First Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, Belgrade ![]()
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