The Message from Turnberry (also known as message of Turnberry or the Turnberry message) was a message of 8 June 1990 sent by the

North Atlantic Council The North Atlantic Council (NAC) is the principal political decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), consisting of permanent representatives of its member countries. It was established by wikisource:North Atlantic ...

meeting on June 7–8 near the ruins of the

Turnberry Castle Turnberry Castle is a fragmentary ruin on the coast of Kirkoswald parish, near Maybole in Ayrshire, Scotland.''Ordnance of Scotland'', ed. Francis H. Groome, 1892-6. Vol.6, p.454 Situated at the extremity of the lower peninsula within the pari ...

, Scotland, addressed "to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and to all other European countries"; effectively meaning the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...

(Warsaw Treaty Organization) and neutral European nations, offering "friendship and cooperation... to help build a new peaceful order in Europe, based on freedom, justice and democracy".

Background

The message was issued in the aftermath of the Autumn of Nations events in

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...

. Around the same time, the Warsaw Pact was also holding their own meeting, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union would hold one in the near future, giving ample opportunity for the Communists to issue a reply. The message has been called a success of the German diplomacy, in particular, German diplomat , on the path to

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

. Other notable supporters of this message included German Foreign Minister

Hans-Dietrich Genscher Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affa ...

and American Secretary of State

James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House chief of staff and 67th United States secretary ...

. Canada was also described as a vocal supporter of the message among the NATO parties.

Significance

The message, issued in addition to the normal NATO communiques, was quickly picked up by international media. It has been called "exceptional", and the "first official recognition of the end of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

", a "hand of friendship", as well as "the first step in the evolution of NATO-Russia relations". The message has also been described as laying down the foundations of NATO's modern partnership and outreach programmes. It was followed a month later by the

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

's 1990 London summit which further declared that "USSR and Warsaw Pact are no longer enemies". Also that month, the NATO Secretary General,

Manfred Wörner Manfred Hermann Wörner (24 September 1934 – 13 August 1994) was a German politician and diplomat. He served as the defense minister of West Germany between 1982 and 1988. He then served as the seventh Secretary General of NATO from 1988 to ...

, visited Moscow to discuss future cooperation, a first for NATO–Russia relations. The process of de-escalation would lead to the formation of the

Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) is a post–Cold War, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) institution. The EAPC is a multilateral forum created to improve relations between NATO and non-NATO countries in Europe and Central Asi ...

in 1997.

References

{{reflist

External links

Message From Turnberry
text on the official NATO website 1990 in Europe History of NATO Cold War 1990 documents NATO relations Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

Background

Significance

See also

References

External links