Yves Herman | Reuters NATO officials on Tuesday celebrated the lifting of a veto by Turkey against Sweden and Finland joining the transatlantic alliance, a move that brought the Nordic countries one step closer to full NATO membership four months after Russia began its invasion. in Ukraine. Turkey’s initial opposition was a major obstacle and a surprise to many, amid a growing urgency among Western nations to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin. Finland and Sweden have made a historic decision to end their non-aligned positions and join the alliance in the face of Russian aggression, but the new NATO members require the unanimous approval of all existing member states. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been adamant in his demands from Sweden and Finland, which have focused on relations with groups that the Turkish government considers a terrorist threat. What is a great victory for NATO is also a victory for Erdogan, analysts say, and a victory the president needed to back up domestic support as his economy stagnates and Turks struggle with more than 70% inflation. . “Win everywhere, except for Putin, who is the big loser in all of this,” Timothy Ash, an emerging market strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, wrote in a note Wednesday. “Good decision by Erdogan. He is getting some political capital in the elections.” “He negotiated hard, until the last minute, and got real victories with assurances” on security issues and possibly on more military equipment than the US, Ash wrote. “He had his call with Biden and he will take one on one with Biden in Madrid. He is coming back from the cold with the West.”
Turkey “got what it wanted”
The achievement with Turkey was followed by four hours of talks and weeks of discussions and debates, culminating in a tripartite agreement between Turkey, Sweden and Finland. The agreement included the Nordic countries lifting arms embargoes previously imposed on Turkey, tightening laws against Kurdish militant activists Ankara considers terrorists, and tackling Turkish demands for the extradition of suspected Kurdish fighters. Turkey is home to 14 million Kurds, one of the largest ethnic groups in the world. The population of 30 million is distributed throughout Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria as well as in the dispersal of migrants around the world. Kurds have faced decades of persecution throughout Turkey’s modern history. A large Kurdish separatist group called the PKK, or Kurdish Workers’ Party, has been at war with the Turkish state since the 1980s, following violent tactics that provoked bloody reactions and resulted in more than 40,000 deaths. Syrian Kurds gather around a US armored vehicle during a protest against Turkish threats next to a US-led international coalition base on the outskirts of the city of Ras al-Ain in Syria’s Hasakeh province near the Turkish border at 6 p.m. October 2019. DELIL SULAIMAN | AFP | Getty Images Turkey, Sweden and Finland classify the PKK as a terrorist organization. But Erdogan accused the two Scandinavian states of hosting and supporting PKK fighters, something these countries deny. But Sweden in particular supports and sends aid to other Kurdish groups in Syria, which the Turkish government does not differentiate from the PKK. For Erdogan, guaranteeing better co-operation on this issue and respecting his security needs was the first priority. Turkey “got what it wanted” from the agreement with Sweden and Finland reached on Tuesday night, the Turkish president’s office said in a statement. This meant “full co-operation with Turkey in the fight against the PKK and its affiliates”, including a PKK affiliate in Syria called the YPG, which had been backed by Western countries, including the US, in the fight against ISIS. Stockholm and Helsinki also pledged “not to impose embargo restrictions on the defense industry” in Turkey and to take “concrete measures to extradite terrorist criminals”, according to the statement.
An F-16 deal in the works?
Erdogan will also have a private meeting with US President Joe Biden during the NATO summit in Madrid, which many suspect was another sweetener for the deal. It is expected to push for the sale of US F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, something the Biden government said was a separate issue from the NATO deal. It is unclear whether the sale of the F-16s will take place, but many observers expect it to be a gesture of unity following Erdogan’s acceptance of the new NATO candidates. The US ousted Turkey from the F-35 program in 2017 after purchasing the Russian S-400 missile defense system. “The F-16 deal definitely needs to be made – hopefully the US Congress will not put a key to the projects,” Ash wrote. Congress is usually required to approve all arms sales to the United States. The leaders of Finland and Sweden have both said that a decision on whether to apply for NATO membership can be expected sooner rather than later. Paul Wennerholm | Afp | Getty Images Eventually, Erdogan will need to see action, not words, to feel he has gotten a good deal. “The most important thing is to wait and see what the commitments will be implemented on the ground,” Haki Akil, a former Turkish ambassador to the Middle East and Europe, told CNBC. “Sweden in particular may face some domestic policy problems,” he said, due to political pressure from influential Kurdish groups in Sweden. “We can say that this agreement is a success for President Erdogan, but the internal political impact or profit in the country may be limited due to the economic situation in the country,” he added. The presidential elections in Turkey are in June 2023 and a lot can happen from now until then. But by gaining some concessions from the West and proving that he can leverage to his advantage, Erdogan can return to Turkey with something to show for his efforts. However, the economic crisis affecting the country of 84 million – whose currency has lost half its value in the last year – may eventually play a bigger role. “Erdogan has shown his pragmatism again, avoiding a crisis by taking some political capital … which he hopes to develop internally in the elections,” Ash wrote. “But the outcome of the election is still very uncertain.”
