Turkey continues to play hard ball over Sweden, Finland NATO membership
Turkey’s Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party government is demanding that both countries end their arms embargoes on Turkey over its military intervention in 2019 against the Kurds in northeast Syria.
Tensions within NATO over Turkey’s demands for concessions from Finland and Sweden in exchange for backing the Nordic states’ membership of the Western alliance show no signs of abating, even as Western officials seek to play them down.
Sweden confirmed today that it is sending a delegation to Ankara to discuss its decision to formally apply for NATO membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The move is further evidence that Turkey’s objections have not been overcome.
Upping the ante, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today they “need not bother to come” unless military sanctions imposed by the Nordic countries on Turkey were rescinded.
“The crisis mode is confirmed,” a source with close knowledge of the discussions told Al-Monitor. The source said there were few signs, if any, that Turkey was ready to drop its demands that both countries cease what Ankara calls their support for “terrorists.” It is referring in particular to Kurdish groups sympathetic to imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and Pennsylvania-based Sunni cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkey accuses Gulen of orchestrating the failed attempt to violently overthrow the government in 2016.
