Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
The second half of the 20th Century was characterised by the spirit of a strong foreign policy orientation of the Czechoslovakia towards the Arab countries. In the era of the Slovak independence, such orientation of the foreign policy is completely absent. However, we can consider the events of the Arab Spring, which opened up the possibility of greater participation in the events in this part of the world, to be a turning point. In our article we would like to analyse the development of modern Slovak-Arab relations, but in a broader historical context.
Keywords: Arab world, European Neighbourhood Policy, Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Oriental Partnership, Arab Spring
Introduction
Arab world, as the Arab countries use to be called, represents a special place on the world stage - a geographic area of 8,000 km width (from the westernmost parts of Morocco to the coast of the Gulf of Oman in the east), which always attracted the attention of world powers. For a long time, the important geopolitical phenomena related to Arab countries had taken place mainly in the Mediterranean region - six states situated on the Mediterranean coast covers up to 60% of the Arab population. The Mediterranean Sea is a "perfect example" of the accumulation of multiple geopolitical factors ranging from historical heritage, such as colonisation and decolonisation process associated with the emergence of nation-states and post-colonial question, through a diverse range of local conflicts to conflicts of world-wide dimensions, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or conflicts related to oil. Even for distant Arab countries, particularly the Gulf States, was its mouth on the Mediterranean ports for a long time the subject of strategic interest, but in recent decades in these countries we can observe tendencies of "independence" associated with the oil industry, which makes the focus of the Arab world transferred from the Mediterranean toward the Gulf.
Since the discovery of the first oil field in 1908, Masjed Soleyman, resources of the oil and the gas in the Middle East significantly contributed to the clash of interests of individual industrial powers in the region. With nearly 50% of world oil exports and 60% of the world reserves this region will have yet more long-term global strategic importance. This whole area is, however, increasingly...