Yugoslavia and the Non-Aligned Movement
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, an international groupation established to maintain independence of countries beyond Eastern and Western Bloc from the major Cold War powers.
[4] Yugoslavia's leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement granted it a disproportionately influential role in Cold War diplomacy, elevating its global standing beyond its comparatively modest population and economic size, and military power, with some authors even describing it as a "third diplomatic power" during certain moments of the Cold War, particularly in the Global South issues.
[6] Today, the archives in Belgrade and the rest of former Yugoslavia remain largely untapped but often vital for Cold War historians, offering unique insights due to the extensive documents produced and information collected by Yugoslav diplomats and intelligence services during that time.
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.
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.
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).
Yugoslavia developed its relations with India, another founding member, from the time of their concurrent mandate at the UN Security Council from the end of 1949 onward.
[9] A year later, during the 1950 United Nations General Assembly session, prominent Yugoslav politician and at the time Minister of Foreign Affairs Edvard Kardelj stated that "Yugoslavia cannot accept that mankind must choose between domination by one or other power".
[10] On 22 December 1954 meeting in New Delhi Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito signed a joint statement stipulating that "the policy of non-alignment adopted and pursued by their respective countries is not 'neutrality' or 'neutralism' and therefore passivity, as sometimes alleged, but is a positive, active and constructive policy seeking to lead to collective peace".
[15] Nevertheless, President of Yugoslavia Tito, who was the sole surviving founder of NAM at the time, launched a diplomatic campaign to keep the movement independent of both blocs.
[16] Yugoslavia wanted to preserve its hard-won independence from the Soviet Union and to prevent some Arab countries in their effort to deprive Egypt of its nonaligned status after the peace deal with Israel.
[15] In an effort to rebuild internal cohesion via success in the foreign policies Post-Tito, Yugoslavia attempted to host prominent events and participate in a number of multilateral initiatives.
The initiative was pushed by the new Yugoslav foreign minister from the Socialist Republic of Croatia and future 1993-1996 UN Secretary General's Special Advisor on the NAM Budimir Lončar.
Former Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina joined the United Nations as new member states while UN imposed sanctions against Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslav Crisis created an unprecedented situation in which the chairperson of the movement (Dobrica Ćosić who was in London at the time) was absent from the conference to transfer the chairmanship to Indonesia.
[5] In the absence of clear direction, the Yugoslav delegation agreed that the new post-Yugoslav states could participate in the meeting with the status of observers despite the fact that Belgrade did not recognize them at the time.
The country was the major advocate among the member states for moderate approach to numerous issues always highlighting the importance of non-attachment to superpower-led alliances.
[18] Yugoslavia, together with India, proposed a large number of amendments in a successful effort to change what they saw as unacceptably one-sided pro-Soviet draft of the final declaration of the Havana Conference.
[18] Cuba, Iran, and Iraq, all of which were perceived to belong to the more radical wing of the movement, were absent from the 1989 Belgrade Conference which led to adoption of the more equidistant final document.
[6] Twenty-five delegations participated at the First Non-Aligned Summit in Belgrade which included Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Algeria, United Arab Republic, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia from Europe or the Mediterranean region.
[28] In 2001 at the Coordination Bureau and subsequent Ministerial Meeting that same year FR Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was recognized as an observer state of NAM.
