THE TURKISH YEARBOOK, VOL. XXVI, 1996
The polilical tremors experienced in international relations since 1989 significantly altered political geography of Eurasia, sweeping away at the same time the international system that had been built up over many years and certainties that many people believed to be inviolate. Within less than seven years since the World had heard Gorbachev's rise to power in Moscow, he came to supervise the disintegraıion of the last of the great empires. Instead, within the vast area once govemed centrally from Moscow, suddenly emerged 15 new states, 'some of which, in modem times, have never enjoyed the status of independent actors in international politics'.