Just when it seemed like Finland and Sweden’s accession into NATO was imminent, Turkey has taken its allies by surprise by throwing a wrench into the works.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he didn’t view “positively” the Nordic countries’ desire to join the alliance, accusing the two of being “like guesthouses for terror organizations.” He told his party lawmakers in Ankara on Wednesday that he expects NATO members to “understand, respect and support” Turkey’s security issues.
Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO on Wednesday at Allied headquarters in Brussels, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The decision represents a setback for Moscow, with the war in Ukraine triggering the kind of enlargement of the alliance that it invaded Ukraine to prevent.
Accession of new states however requires consensus among existing members, and that’s where Ankara comes in.
Turkey, which joined the alliance three years after it was established in 1949 and has the group’s second largest army, has said it won’t support the bids unless its demands are met.
Erdogan accused the two countries of harboring members of the separatist militant Kurdistan’s Workers Party, also known as PKK. The PKK, which seeks an independent state in Turkey, has been in an armed struggle with that country for decades and has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Turkey has complained about the lack of support it has received in its fight against Kurdish militants, which Ankara perceives as its top national security threat. It has accused Sweden of harboring its adversaries and providing support to Kurdish militants in northern Syria, whom Ankara considers an extension of the PKK.
The crisis has brought to the fore longstanding Turkish grievances against Western nations and NATO allies, while it has given Ankara an opportunity to use its position in the alliance to extract concessions
Ankara also says that the two nations haven’t responded to extradition requests, according to state media. The wanted individuals are accused of having links to the PKK as well as FETO – the group led by US-based cleric Fetullah Gulen whom Turkey believes was behind the 2016 failed coup attempt (an allegation Gulen denies).
Finland and Sweden voiced optimism on Tuesday that common ground can be found with Turkey over its objections.
Sweden’s finance minister Mikael Damberg told public broadcaster SVT on Monday that his country is not a “friend of terrorism,” and that it takes “very seriously anything that has to do with terrorism.”
“We will of course use diplomacy, we will clarify any possible uncertainties,” he said.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Saturday that her country, just like the rest of the EU, considered PKK a terrorist organization.
Ankara has also demanded that Sweden and Finland drop an arms embargo that was slapped on Turkey in 2019 following its military offensive in northeastern Syria.