The Week, London 19 May 2022
LONDON - Turkey has objected to plans to fast-track Finland and Sweden’s applications to join Nato, demanding the two countries renounce their support for Kurdish “terrorist” organisations before joining the military alliance.
After some “hesitation” among the military alliance “about the seriousness of Turkey’s objections”, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has “doubled down on his threat to veto” the Nordic nations’ applications if his demands are not met, The Guardian said.
The Turkish strongman leader has also warned “there is no point in either country sending delegations to Ankara to persuade him” to back down, the paper added. This prompted his allies to accuse him of “using blackmail” to force the alliance to accept his terms.
Terrorist sympathisers?
On Wednesday Finland and Sweden formally handed their applications for membership of the Western military alliance to Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg. This was followed by a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, Nato’s governing political body.
But Turkey’s “reservations” during that gathering meant the alliance was unable to “reach the unanimity required to immediately move ahead with a formal start to the accession process”, Politico reported.
Turkey, which joined Nato during the alliance’s second expansion in 1952, opposes Finland and Sweden’s membership because of its long-standing allegation that Helsinki and Stockholm back “terrorist organisations” in Iraq and Syria.
This refers to the countries’ support for two Kurdish militias in the Middle East: the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and People’s Defence Units (YPG).
The YPG “spearheaded the campaign against Isis in Syria”, the Financial Times (FT) said, receiving “weapons and training from the US-led anti-Isis coalition”, which was “supported by Sweden”.
The group, however, has close ties with the PKK, which has “waged a bloody armed struggle against the Turkish state since the 1980s” and has been “recognised as a terrorist organisation by Sweden as well as the EU and the US”.
Western backing for “groups that are affiliated” with the PKK has “long been a source of anger in Turkey”, the FT added, “both among officials and the public”.
Brothers without arms
Ankara insists that any new candidates for Nato membership “recognise its concerns about Kurdish militias” both “inside Turkey and across its borders in Syria and Iraq”, Bloomberg reported.
Erdoğan is demanding that both “publicly denounce not only the PKK, but also its affiliates before being allowed to join the bloc”.
Three officials told Bloomberg that “designating the PKK as a terrorist organization” is unlikely to be enough to stem Erdoğan’s objections, suggesting “the Nordic applicants must do more to clamp down on PKK sympathisers it says are active in their countries”.
Foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has also “slammed” Finland and Sweden over their refusal to “extradite suspects wanted in Turkey despite Ankara’s requests”, Al Jazeera reported.
These individuals stand “accused of having links to the PKK or to the Gulen movement”, which was blamed for a 2016 coup attempt.
President Erdoğan has also demanded that both Finland and Sweden “lift their ban on arms exports”, a measure “imposed in October 2019 after the Turkish incursion in northern Syria”, The Guardian said.
While “Turkey’s arms trade with the two countries is negligible and it’s not seeking any major defense purchases with them”, the three officials told Bloomberg that “Ankara won’t accept expanding a military alliance to countries that are blocking weapons deals”.
Çavuşoğlu made this objection public on Monday, saying the arms restrictions go “against the spirit” of an alliance founded on a principle of mutual defence.
Roadblock
Few doubt that “Erdoğan’s intervention could tangle Nato up in knots for months”, The Guardian said, meaning it is now “the task of alliance diplomats” to establish his “seriousness and the price that would have to be paid to make him back down”.
Anything less could provoke “a full-blown Nato crisis”, the paper added, leaving other member states “frustrated with Erdoğan’s brinkmanship”.
Internal “diplomatic deadlocks” over the alliance’s expansion have happened before, Al Jazeera reported, most recently when Greece delayed Macedonia’s application “in protest over the country’s name, which the Greeks said was an attempt to steal Greek heritage”.
But Turkey has “historically been in favour of the expansion of Nato”, the broadcaster added, leading experts to suggest that a compromise is possible.
“Turkey might not exactly get what it wants, but its allies will likely offer something that will satisfy it,” said Mensur Akgün, professor of international relations at Istanbul’s Kultur University. Ankara will negotiate “in line with its national interests.
“At the end of the day, historically Turkey has never undermined a Nato consensus and will still try not to do it,” he added. “However, it will not be unconditional.”
