On Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Sweden should not expect Turkey to approve its NATO request unless “terrorists” are returned, and that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not travel to Turkey to persuade it to support their membership.
Turkey’s concerns
Despite Turkey’s concerns, Finland and Sweden have formally requested to join NATO, a decision prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The admission procedure is expected to take only a few weeks. Ankara blames Sweden and, to a lesser extent, Finland of supporting Turkish government-designated ” terrorist” groups. Since Turkey embarked out a cross-border operation into Syria in 2019, Sweden has imposed arms sanctions on the country.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who visited the United States, met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday to discuss NATO membership for the Nordic countries. “We have such sensitivity when it comes to protecting our borders from terrorist organisations,” Erdogan told legislators in parliament from his governing AK Party. He also remarked that the NATO growth is only relevant for them if their sensitivities are respected.
Turkey’s point of view
NATO is a security body, an organisation de
dicated to security. As a result, we cannot say ‘yes’ to depriving this security body of its security,” Erdogan remarked. Erdogan accused NATO allies of assisting terrorists,citing arms shipments to the YPG, which is a major point of contention between Ankara and Washington, as well as other Western countries.
In 2019, Ankara gained little international support for its plans to establish a safe zone in northern Syria, which included resettling one million Syrians in territory recovered from the YPG by Turkey and its Syrian allies. Erdogan urged NATO allies to back Turkey’s “legal” and “moral” activities in Syria, including the safe zone, or “at the very least, do not try to trip us up.”
Erdogan has also stated that Turkey will veto NATO membership bids from countries that have imposed sanctions on Ankara. After Turkey’s 2019 Syrian incursion against the
YPG, Sweden and Finland banned arms supplies to Turkey. Erdogan’s spokesman said on Saturday that Turkey has not ruled out Sweden and Finland joining NATO, however this negotiations and a crackdown on what it considers terrorist activities are needed.
