Italy's view on Turkey Joining the Atlantic Treaty (1949-1952)

Abstract

This study aims to examine the difficult way in which Turkey and Greece negotiated their membership applications in the North-Atlantic Treaty and it analyzes the consequences of this foreign policy choice which placed these countries in one of the Cold War teams. Heavy emphasis was put on the reasons why the Italian administration considered and supported these states’ demands for security. Essentially, this study tried to redraw the diplomatic effort, using documents from the collections of the Italian diplomacy (I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani), mostly from the recently published 11th/XI series, which discuses Italy’s political and diplomatic view within NATO. It is also worth mentioning that this study also followed the attitudes and reactions of the government in Athens regarding the issue of the first expansion of the Atlantic Alliance, although the author placed emphasis on the more fleshed out policy of the Turkish Government, another reason being its influence in the Middle East and among the Arab states.