TURKO-YUGO-SLAV PACT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 246, 29 September 1934, Page 15

TURKO-YUGO-SLAV PACT

Italian Expansion Feared The new pact of friendship, arbitration and non-aggression between Turkey and Y’ugo-Slavia which has been ratified unanimously by the Yugo-slav Parliament is felt in Belgrade to constitutes a new strand in the status quo net which is being woven about Bulgaria by its “antirevisionist” Balkan neighbours, says a correspondent to the “Christian Science Monitor.” The new treaty also strengthens Yugo-Slavia’s position relative to Italy, it is contended. It is recalled that for some years Turkey has worked in close diplomatic co-operation with Rome and added to the influence of Italy in the Balkans rather than to that of France. Italy until recently has considered Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece as favourable to Rome’s Balkan policy. But Albania more than a year ago detached itself somewhat from the Ita'ian orbit, while Greece is supposed to have weakened its ties with Rome by joining the Balkan pact of last February. Now Turkey has concluded a special treaty with Yugo-Slavia, the Government of which has not been too friendly with Italy in the past. Turkey’s chief reason for its pact with Yugo-Slavia, it is believed in 80l-

grade, is a fear of Italian expansion la the Mediterranean. Another reason 1s the dose co-operation of Turkey with Russia, now a part of France’s security system. The pact, it is said, is also part of a general plan of the “antirevisionist” Balkan States to form such a system of interlocking treaties about Bulgaria that Sofia will be forc-.d into a general Balkan bloc from whicn it has hitherto held aloof.

The new pact is based on tn.s Loudon definition of aggression, contains a clause against any third Power that might attack either Yugo-Slavia or Turkey, and establishes arbitration as the only means for settling disputes between the two contracting ■artics. Its working is very similar to that of the Kellogg Pact.