Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced Turkey’s opposition to Finland and Sweden for joining NATO
The President of Turkey – Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced Turkey’s opposition to Finland and Sweden for joining North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
He said that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince Turkey to approve their NATO bid. His remarks came after Swedish Foreign Office said that Senior Representatives of Sweden and Finland were planning to travel to Turkey for talks to address Ankara’s objections.
He called Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorist organisations and accused them of having terrorists in its Parliament.
Referring to Sweden’s 2019 decision to suspend arms sales to Turkey over its military operation in Syria, Erdogan said, “We will not say ‘yes’ to those [countries] who apply sanctions to Turkey to join security organisation NATO.”
He also accused Finland and Sweden of harbouring terror groups, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which have been blacklisted by Turkey, the European Union (E.U.) and the United States (U.S.).
“Neither of the countries have a clear stance against terror organisations. How can we trust them?” said Erdogan.
Turkey is also angry with Finland for not responding positively to Turkey’s 33 extradition requests over the past 5 years. As per Turkey, these individuals are either accused of having links to the PKK and allied groups or of belonging to a movement blamed for the attempted overthrow of Erdogan in 2016.
It is to be noted that Finland and Sweden require the approval of all 30 members of NATO to join the alliance. The U.S. Secretary of State – Antony Blinken stated that Sweden and Finland would be able to join NATO despite Turkey’s concerns. The Secretary-General of NATO – Jens Stoltenberg has also said he is confident that NATO would be able to address the concerns of Turkey.
As per a Former Deputy Assistant Secretary-General of NATO for Public Diplomacy and an Analyst at the European Leadership Network – Stefanie Babst, “Turkey will, in the end, align with the consensus and welcome Finland and Sweden as new members.”
Turkey is only trying to bargain in negotiations in order to get some returns. Turkey may be aiming to obtain military equipment from U.S. to upgrade its outdated F-16 fleet and ratchet up some Western support to relieve its troubled economy. Turkey wants both the countries to end support for PKK and other groups banned by Turkey and also to lift ban on arms sales. As far as mention of PKK is concerned, Erdogan could be doing so to gain support of Turkish voters.
Besides, NATO countries like Norway, Denmark and Iceland have said they are ready to support Sweden and Finland by all means necessary, if they came under attack. The United Kingdom (U.K.) has already given security guarantees to Sweden and Finland to cover the transition period.
