Balkan Pact

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Balkan Pact
Romanian stamp depicting the Balkan Entente
Members of the Balkan Pact
Formation	February 9, 1934
Extinction	1938
Type	International defense organization
Region served	The Balkans
Membership	Greece  Romania  Turkey  Yugoslavia
Official languages	French

The Balkan Pact was a treaty signed by Greece, Turkey, Romania, and Yugoslavia in 1934. The signatories agreed to suspend all disputed territorial claims against each other and their immediate neighbors following the aftermath of the First World War and a rise in various regional ethnic minority tensions. Other nations in the region that had been involved in related diplomacy refused to sign the document, including Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Soviet Union. Nonsignatories were mostly those governments with territorial expansion in mind. The Balkan Pact helped to ensure peace between Turkey and the independent countries in southeastern Europe that had been part of the Ottoman Empire, most importantly Greece, but failed to stem regional intrigue that encouraged military intervention by Germany, Britain, and the Soviet Union during the Second World War.