North Atlantic Treaty
 North Atlantic Treaty authentication page |
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| Type | Military Alliance |
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| Signed | 4 April 1949 |
| Location | Washington, D.C. |
| Effective | 24 August 1949 |
| Condition | Ratification by Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States and by a majority of the other signatory states. |
| Signatories |
28
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| Depository | Government of the United States of America |
| Languages | French, English |
 North Atlantic Treaty at Wikisource |
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The North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949, is the treaty establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
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Background
The treaty was created with an armed attack by the Soviet Union against Western Europe in mind, but the mutual self-defense clause was never invoked during the Cold War. Rather, it was invoked for the first time in 2001 in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in Operation Eagle Assist.
Original Members
The original twelve nations that signed it and thus became the founding members of NATO were:
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Signing
The leaders of the countries who in Washington D.C. signed the agreement as plenipotentiaries were:
Canada – Lester B Pearson and H. H. Wrong
Denmark – Gustav Rasmussen and Henrik de Kauffmann
Iceland – Bjarni Benediktsson and Ólafur Thors
Italy – Carlo Sforza
United Kingdom – Ernest Bevin and Oliver Franks, Baron Franks
United States – Dean Acheson
Later Members
The following nations joined the treaty shortly after the original countries:
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When German reunification occurred in 1990, the country as a whole became a member of NATO.
During the April 2008 summit, Croatia and Albania were officially invited to join NATO. They both signed the treaty and officially joined NATO on April 1,2009.
Article Five
The key section of the treaty was Article V. This committed each member state to consider an armed attack against one state to be an armed attack against all states.
U.S. Ratification
In the United States, the treaty was ratified by the US Senate in a vote of 82 to 13 on July 21,1949.
See also
External links
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