It was supposed to be a consummate fact. Three months after Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his forces to Ukraine, the governments of Finland and Sweden formally applied for membership in NATO on May 18 as protection against future Russian military aggression.
President Biden immediately expressed his approval, saying expanding the alliance “would strengthen NATO,” and a month earlier Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a longtime ally of Putin, said to Finnish President Sauli Niinistö who had no problem with enlargement.
But Erdogan “can change 180 degrees in a second without looking back,” Cengiz Çandar, a Turkish-born senior associate researcher at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, told Yahoo News. On May 19, Erdogan did just that, announcing that Turkey would block the rapid NATO membership of Finland and Sweden, which requires the unanimous support of member states, for his claim that the two nations are “guests for terrorist organizations “.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Adem Altan / AFP via Getty Images)
Former State Department diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford, now a senior member of the Chicago Global Affairs Council, told Yahoo News that the measure was “classic Erdogan,” adding that she will not give up the opportunity to use leverage and where better to do it. ” to do so in an alliance based on unanimity of decisions? ”
Erdogan’s demands are mainly focused on the extradition of Turkish enemies, such as members of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey has been fighting for 38 years, and supporters of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who alleges he was behind a 2016 coup attempt to oust him. Finland has extradited two of the 10 people on Turkey’s list and is reportedly evaluating seven more, while Sweden has passed a new anti-terrorism law. But Turkey is still unsatisfied and has insisted on extraditing others for crimes, including public criticism of Erdogan.
“In an attempt to fully satisfy all of Turkey’s demands, Sweden should become an alternative to an authoritarian police state,” Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University, told Paul. Yahoo News.
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Finnish analysts share the sentiment. “Most lawsuits are impossible to comply with, such as extraditing a person just because they used a Bylock [encrypted] application or has written a critical Facebook comment to President Erdogan, “Toni Alaranta, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told Balkan Insight.
“Many Kurds in Sweden are concerned that Sweden will sacrifice them on the altar of NATO membership,” Levin said. Although Stockholm plans to make concessions, he said, it is a loose rope act. If the leaders concede too much, “the Swedish government runs the risk of being accused of sacrificing long-standing principles,” such as support for the Kurdish cause and civil liberties, “or they are generally considered to have been ceded to an authoritarian regime that is making unacceptable demands, which, frankly, I think is the popular view here in Sweden. “
So far, Turkey has garnered most of its criticism of Sweden, which has a larger, politically mobilized Kurdish population of 100,000, prompting some Finns to question the wisdom of the two countries’ decision to apply. jointly joining NATO.
“It is entirely conceivable that Turkey may, for various reasons, say yes to Finland but not to Sweden at the moment,” Charly Salonius-Pasternak, a senior researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told Euronews last week. .
He clarified his position this week in an email to Yahoo News. “I did not say that Finland should go alone, rather that it was not good, okay, potentially catastrophic, for the Finnish president to say so clearly that we would. [apply] “I think it would be better for Finland and Sweden to come together, but giving that influence to everyone else seems a little short-sighted.”
Were it not for the opposition of Turkey, Finland and Sweden would be on a smooth path to be members of the alliance at next week’s NATO summit in Madrid. It is now a game of guessing whether Erdogan will ever be satisfied.
Announcing the NATO summit in Madrid. (Eduardo Parra / Europa Press via Getty Images)
“There is concern about the dangerous period of the gray zone in which we seem to be trapped,” Levin said, noting that Moscow now knows its plans, but the security guarantee of Article 5 of NATO, which a Attack on one member is an attack on everyone, yes. not yet applied.
Former Defense Department spokeswoman Evelyn Farkas, now executive director of the McCain Institute think tank, told Yahoo News that the delay posed a “real danger.” [that] it jeopardizes the security of Europe and millions of people. “
By blowing up the Nordic leaders, Erdogan is carrying out Putin’s orders, Çandar said.
“Remember that when we first heard speculation about the Swedish and Finnish request to NATO, Putin was very threatening and threatening,” Çandar said. “But since Erdogan intervened, have you heard Putin talk about the inclusion of Sweden and Finland in NATO? Erdogan is doing his job.”
But despite all the attention paid to Erdogan’s demands on alleged terrorists, there are other factors at work, analysts say, including his anger over a U.S.-Turkey fighter jet deal undo.
Turkey has pledged $ 1.4 billion to buy four high-tech F-35s. In 2019, however, ignoring warnings from U.S. officials, Erdogan bought a Russian air defense system, and Trump’s White House quickly refused to hand over all four planes or return the $ 1.4 billion down payment. of dollars. Turkey recently requested that the money be applied to upgrade its F-16s, a move that the Biden administration endorsed but has so far not received the necessary approval from Congress. Erdogan’s cause was not helped when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, another enemy of Turkey, flew to Washington this month to make a major appeal to Congress for not approving F-16 requests. Erdogan and offered to accept the four undelivered F-16s. 35 seconds.
In response, Erdogan announced that “from now on, no one will call me Mitsotakis for me” and canceled bilateral talks with him.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. (Antonio Masiello / Getty Images)
However, another of Erdogan’s apparent motivations for leaving out NATO membership in Sweden and Finland is domestic politics, Çandar said. In the face of next year’s elections in a country where inflation is rising, Erdogan’s popularity is plummeting.
“Official government figures put inflation at 70 percent,” said Çandar, who added that it is likely to be “closer to 100 percent.” By blocking the entry of Sweden and Finland, Erdogan has caught international attention. “Now everyone in the world is talking about Turkey’s conditions and Turkey’s security,” he said, adding that it is a form of “image construction” for Erdogan.
Of course, there is a growing concern among NATO members about Erdogan’s theatrical continuity, Anna Wieslander, the Atlantic Council’s director for northern Europe, told Yahoo News. Opinion among NATO members, he said, has always been “it is better to have Turkey inside NATO than outside NATO because of its strategic value as a window to the Middle East.” But tensions between Turkey and the United States are mounting, he said, noting the aggravated F-35 deal and the fact that Cleric Gulen lives in the U.S., which refuses to extradite him to Turkey. “The level of trust” between Washington and Ankara “is not really there,” all straining the alliance, he added.
Farkas suggested that NATO allies continue to work with Turkey to resolve the issue, but that they set a deadline to coincide with next week’s summit.
“If the deadline passes and Turkey continues to blockade Sweden and Finland, then all concessions, including U.S. arms sales, should expire,” Farkas said. “This is likely to be the only way to act on this, and it is in the interest of the international community to allow this accession to continue.”