an insistence on the primacy and even sacredness of Turkish borders. The formation of Turkey's perceptions regarding the security of the Balkans (or rather the insecurity of the region can be traced back to the developments which culminated in the founding of the Turkish Republic (Wernick, 1999, p. 98).
The current borders of Turkey became established with the signing of the Lausanne Peace Treaty in July 1923 after the Turkish National War of Independence. The treaty which was signed by the victorious Nationalist Government of Ankara, replaced the Sevres Treaty which had been imposed on the defeated Empire by the Allies. The emergent Turkish state was, on the whole, content with the arrangement even though it reconfirmed the loss of significant territory in Thrace to Greece and Bulgaria (Turan and Barlas, 1999, p. 463). However, the border agreed on did not deviate significantly from that which had been declared acceptable by the Nationalists in the National Pact specifying the territories considered to be rightfully belonging to Turkey at the end of World War I. Ha
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