The Bakan Peninsula Essay, Research Paper

The Balkan Peniunsula is comprised of the countries of

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of

Macedonia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece,

Romania, Bulgaria and European Turkey. Balkan history is characterized

by military and political strife. Because of it’s crusial location

between Asia and Europe it has been conquered and re-conquered by

countless nations. Seeking trade routes to the middle east, many

eastern European countries have set up ports there.

Within the past ten years Yugoslavia has undergone major

political changes. In 1991 and 1992 four Yugoslav republics, Slovenia,

Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, declared their independence from

Yugoslavia. Serbia and Montenegro then formed the Federal Republic of

Yugoslavia. After Yugoslavia began skirmishing with ethnic Albanian

rebels in Kosovo at the end of 1998, NATO forces began airstrikes in

late March, 1999. Caoncluding eleven weeks of bombing, the Yugoslav

government allowed a NATO peacekeeping force into Kososvo.