The Cod Wars, also called the Iceland Cod Wars (Icelandic: "Þorskastríðin", "the cod wars", or "Landhelgisstríðin", "the wars for the territorial waters") were a series of confrontations in the 1950s and 1970s between the United Kingdom and Iceland regarding fishing rights in the North Atlantic. The name of the conflict may be derived from a pun on the term "Cold War" (with "cod" reading so similarly to "cold"), possibly via the British tabloid press.