Between nuclear watchdog and pariah: Yugoslavia and the NPT in the 1960s and 1970s

Yugoslavia transitioned from a staunch supporter of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in the 1960s, to a disillusioned and only formal participant of the global non-proliferation regime in the late 1970s and 1980s. The turning point was the Indian ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ of 1974 and the subsequent establishment of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The outcome of this sharp turn in Yugoslav non-proliferation policy was restarting the covert atomic bomb project, previously abandoned following the country’s ratification of the NPT in 1970. Among the first steps was the attempt to establish illicit nuclear trade and cooperation with known ‘rogue’ nations of the era, China, Pakistan and Iraq.