CENTRAL TREATY ORGANIZATION

Abstract

This chapter describes the creation and structure of Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). The Pact of Mutual Cooperation that created an alliance for collective self-defence was signed by Iraq and Turkey in Baghdad on February 24, 1955. Known originally as the Baghdad Pact, and sometimes called the Central Pact, the organization was renamed the CENTO on August 19, 1959, and was active under this name until its dissolution in 1979. By the treaty, the contracting parties took up the idea of a defence scheme established after the Italo–Ethiopian crisis of 1935, when Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan concluded a nonaggression pact in July 1937. The intention behind creating CENTO was to stabilize the near and Middle East, which was militarily and politically still shaken by the Suez crisis. At the same time, the Pact was to represent an instrument to counter the expansion of the Soviet Union's influence in that area. The hostile attitude of the Arab League States was also because of the fact that Iran, Turkey, and the United Kingdom maintained good relations with Israel.