Filenews 22 May 2022
The strong card of unanimity is what Recep Tayyip Erdogan is currently exploiting in NATO by directly threatening with a veto the accession of Sweden and Finland to the North Atlantic alliance.
What if analysts have repeatedly pointed out that Turkey's stance is adventurous, what if Bloomberg said in an opinion piece signed by the news agency's editors that even the possibility of expelling Turkey, which threatens the overall good of the Alliance with its stance to reap benefits, should be considered? What is certain at this stage is that, assuming that countries' accession to NATO must come about after a unanimous decision of all members, it does not leave much room for the Alliance to ignore the oriental bazaar that Ankara is trying to set up.
Sweden's and Finland's accession to NATO would strengthen the alliance's defences in the northeast and mark the biggest change in Europe's security landscape since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In this context, Bloomberg in its analysis attempts to shed light on the points that hit "red" for Turkey and why, as absurd as it may sound, it characterizes Sweden and Finland as "terrorist havens".
1. Why do the Kurds matter to Turkey?
The Kurds are a people, with a population of around 30 million, and one of the largest ethnic groups in the world without their own state at the moment. Their ancestral homes are divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Kurdistan Workers' Party, also known as the PKK, has fought Turkish forces since the mid-1980s, as it has sought an autonomous region for the Kurds within Turkey. Turkey is currently particularly focused on the People's Protection Units, or YPG, a Kurdish militia in Syria that contributed to the defeat of the Islamic State there. Thus, Turkey, fighting the Kurds there, hopes that they will not be the spark that will light the "fire" in the region, further rousing the Kurds inside Turkey.
2. What is Sweden's policy on the Kurds?
Sweden has long implemented policies in favour of respect for minorities both at home and abroad using the corresponding rhetoric. As a result, the country is currently home to up to 100,000 Kurds. In the same context, as other EU states do, it has open contacts with certain Kurdish political groups. However, as much as Erdogan tries to convince otherwise, Sweden was the first country after Turkey to designate the PKK as a terrorist organization in 1984!
3. So what is Erdogan's problem with Sweden?
Turkey criticised Swedish officials for meetings with Kurdish politicians, citing a meeting between Foreign Minister Anne Linde and Elham Ahmad, who represents the PYD, the political wing of the YPG (in Syria). When Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson was elected in 2021, it was partly thanks to the support of a Kurdish MP, Amineh Kakabaveh, Bloomberg reports. Her support was secured in exchange for a commitment to increase cooperation between Anderson's Social Democrats and the PYD. Another focus of tension on the part of Turkey is the Syrian Democratic Council, the political arm of a kurdish-dominated group of forces in northern Syria. Turkey says this group is dominated by terrorists. Sweden, on the other hand, says it cooperates with the SDC, but not with the YPG or the PKK.
4. What does Erdogan demand?
Ankara has called on Sweden to extradite suspects wanted by Turkey on terrorism charges, which according to the Turks Sweden has so far refused to do. In this context, Turkey wants Sweden and Finland to publicly denounce the PKK and its subsidiaries. According to Turkish officials who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity, Turkey is also demanding an end to the arms export restrictions that Sweden and Finland imposed on Turkey in late 2019 in conjunction with many other EU countries after sending its military to Syria.
5. Will Sweden "comply"?
Sweden holds general elections in September, and any move that could be interpreted as allegiance to Erdogan may not be popular with voters. Anderson's government is likely to resist being dragged into negotiations on extradition policy, for example, or its arms exports. Instead, Sweden's diplomats will likely try to recruit allies to pressure Turkey not to block Sweden's entry into NATO.
6. How does Finland fit in here?
He appears to have been caught at the crossfire. The country does not have a significant Kurdish minority, with only about 15,000 Kurdophones living in the country. Finnish policymakers say the country complies with the EU's terrorism designations, which means it has also banned the PKK. Finland, like Sweden, ended arms exports to Turkey in 2019, but trade was small. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto called Turkey's stance a test "if there is a NATO open-door policy" and noted that "anti-democratic practices, such as oppression, blackmail" do not suit "an alliance of democratic countries"."
The road to membership
All of these, however, are exercises on paper as Ankara may persist, respectively, but NATO members are expected to persist as the days go by, thus composing a landscape that Bloomberg describes as a "courtyard of hell" in which Ankara is treading.
After all, Turkish officials point out that classifying the PKK as a terrorist organisation is not enough: Scandinavian applicants need to do more to quell PKK supporters Ankara says are active in their countries.
Turkey also wants Sweden and Finland to end the arms export restrictions they imposed on Turkey, along with many other members of the European Union, after its 2019 invasion of Syria to push the YPG off the border, the officials said.
Indeed, while Turkey's arms trade with the two countries is negligible and does not seek significant defence deals with them, NATO officials point out that in principle Ankara will not accept the extension of a military alliance to countries that block arms deals.
This, as international analysts point out, will be done because it is common knowledge that as time goes by it is to the detriment of both the Alliance and especially Sweden and Finland that they are not NATO territories. Besides, Vladimir Putin and Russian officials have publicly expressed their objection to the possibility of these two countries joining NATO and considering the surging of Russia's relations with the West, a scenario of provocation on the northwestern border cannot be ruled out.
Thus, Ankara is once again playing a dangerous card, as Bloomberg has pointed out in the past few days, Turkey is basically trying to reap the lifting of the sanctions against it that it has provoked by making the agreement with Moscow on the Russian S-400s.
Source: protothema.gr
