History
The foreign policy and diplomatic tradition of Serbia derive from its independent state in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Specific foreign policy and diplomatic experience of the Serbian state was drawn upon the vassal or autonomous state of the Serbian people during the various periods of the Ottoman domination in the Balkans, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries.
In the nineteenth century, when the movement for independence from the Ottoman Empire became irrepressible, especially after the First Serbian Uprising (1804) under Karađorđe and the Second Uprising (1815) under Miloš Obrenović, Serbia embarked upon an ever broader diplomatic rapport with the Porte in Constantinople, with Russia, Austria, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other European nations and neighboring states, such as Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Serbia became fully independent and internationally recognized at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
Among the states with which Serbia established diplomatic relations first (before that time diplomatic relations were limited to certain diplomatic functions) were Russia, Austria, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and a number of other European countries. The diplomatic relations with the United States, however, were established only in 1882, through the ratification of the Convention on trade and navigation and the Convention on consular relations.
Following the end of World War I, in which Serbia fought on the side of the Entente, Serbia became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
In the interwar period the Kingdom was a founding member of the League of Nations and of the Little Entente with Romania and Czechoslovakia as well as of the Balkan Treaty with Romania, Greece and Turkey. The Kingdom's joining of the Axis Tripartite Pact on March 25, 1941 was revoked, by the will of the Serbian people, on the streets of Belgrade two days later.
During World War II, in which Yugoslavia was allied against the Axis Powers, a new Yugoslav federal state came into being that was proclaimed and internationally recognized in 1945.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1975. It was also one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, which held two summit conferences in Belgrade, in 1961 and 1989. In the early fifties Yugoslavia was a member of the Balkan Treaty with Greece and Turkey.
Read more about this topic: Ministry Of Foreign Affairs (Serbia)
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“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
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