Erdogan’s game with NATO over Finland and Sweden: What he really wants
Everyone is wondering what in the world Erdogan is doing – first he prevents Finland and Sweden from joining NATO, then he gives the go-ahead after winning concessions on Kurdish terror that is alleged to have been hatched by expat Kurds in these countries. Or so it seems. The same Erdogan who defied Russia by selling these devastating drones to Ukraine. Is he pro-West or pro-Moscow? What is his game? He apparently used the accession issue Finland / Sweden as a bargaining chip. What does he really hope to be able to push from NATO? For the answers, you will not get any real help from authentic Turkish pundits who are piled out by major news organizations like the BBC. If they are based in Turkey, they can not be too sincere for fear of being persecuted under Erdogan’s repressive anti-media laws. And the foreign reporters on site are not much better because their HUMINT contacts are monitored and the news media they read locally are mouth-watering.
So, does Erdogan’s noise about Kurds reflect his genuine concern? Yes and no. For the most part no. In any case, neither Finland nor Sweden will extradite anyone whom Erdogan asks for extrajudicial allegations – such as the BBC. contours. More about the Kurds later. Erdogan has major concerns, the main of which is the consolidation of his regime in a time of galloping inflation and economic meltdown at home. With a parliamentary election waiting for the new year, his party is heading for a big loss. In reality, Erdogan really wants a promise of non-interference from Western democracies in his internal affairs. Probably because he intends to hold power in his hands through various authoritarian maneuvers. In fact, he stays as president and maintains state capture from there. He tells the Western world: ‘You need me to coordinate NATO action? Do not undermine my grip on power and do not fight for political prisoners like Osman Kavala, or any number of imprisoned journalists and Kurdish politicians. Do not oppose my forthcoming anti-democratic tricks. ‘ These are his main terms. But there is more.
No one asks why Erdogan worked so hard to acquire Russian S-400 missiles, so much so that Turkey was virtually split from NATO. This column has addressed this issue several times. Answer: the NATO-trained and equipped Turkish air force was the only arm of the military that he could not neutralize during the so-called coup attempt against him in July 2016. He had no defense against his own air force: NATO air defense weapons, not to mention personnel, needs thorough reprogramming to shoot down Turkish pilots in NATO jets. Erdogan’s long – term solution was to acquire Russian missile batteries along with Russian training for Turkish operators loyal to him. He does not want to go through that again – especially now that he has alienated Putin. So he will demand assurances from Biden and allies that they will not support military resistance against his rule. With that in place, Turkey air resources will be completely reunited in NATO.
Erdogan follows the grandiose policy formula of most authorities – feeding his people imperialist nostalgia instead of prosperity, freedom and the rule of law. Hence his raids in Syria and Libya. When Turkey shot down the Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border as early as 2015, Erdogan called for NATO assistance to prevent retaliation. He was rejected. They did not want any part in his strong man riot that provoked a NATO-Russia confrontation. Russian bombers then attacked Turkey’s Islamist agents in Syria at will. Erdogan’s exhibition as a later Ottoman sultan was dealt a severe blow. Turkey had to apologize out loud. Erdogan will henceforth demand that NATO back him in Syria and wherever he confronts the Russians. There’s the mess. Where else can it be?
So far, it is not clear whether Erdogan will agree to Ukraine’s demand that Turkey stop Russian ships with stolen Ukrainian grain. Most likely, he will try to serve personally while making public gestures to defy Russia. For that, he will need NATO both to support him and to look the other way. But again, he has greater strategic needs …
Erdogan would like help from the West with the long-term project to create a link between Turkey and Central Asia. A connected land bridge via Azerbaijan would reconnect Turkish states for the first time since the Tsars banned the Silk Road over two centuries ago. Erdogan certainly paid no price for intervening in the 2020 battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabagh, during which Turkish drones played a crucial role in helping Azerbaijan win. Despite the very influential diaspora community in the West, no one came to the aid of Armenia due to larger strategic calculations. A potential adaptation of the Turkish Stans is now geographically possible, threatening Russia’s south and east – and distracting Russian forces away from Ukraine. Erdogan would like Western help with the long-term project. Moscow is actively aware of the threat, which is probably why both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have experienced sudden uprisings in recent times. To be clear, there are as many real causes as possible for protests in Central Asian states and many of them were also built in by Moscow from the beginning. But that’s a topic for another column. In the usual colonialist way, Russia created ethnically and geographically unstable discrete states in that region in order to provoke precisely this type of instability at will. Message: You are trying to stay away from us, we can destabilize you at any time. Stay away from Turkey.
Now to the supposed Kurdish question that was originally invoked by Erdogan against Sweden and Finland. There is certainly some evidence that ex-pat Kurdish communities in Europe support Kurdish groups in Turkey, but not necessarily in armed struggle but the border may be blurred. One could argue that, after insulting Putin, Erdogan has good reason to fear Kurdish separatists, the PKK, because the Soviets created and supported them for decades. Then, during the ISIS years, the United States chose to ally itself with the Iraqi / Syrian Kurds to eradicate ISIS. Ever since then, there has been a continuing sympathy in the West for the Kurdish situation and it irritates Erdogan. After ISIS, however, the Kurds lost much of their active support and Moscow could easily step into the vacuum, resume its old role and revive the Kurdish threat along and within Turkey’s borders. The Russians know how to play the multinational destabilization game too well.
But the truth is that Erdogan is primarily responsible for keeping that threat alive. He courted Turkey’s Kurds during the first years of his term, hoping to ally with him against Kemalist secularists in a pan-Islamic return to Ottoman political alliances. The Kurds instead chose to create their own secular center-left party. He has not stopped punishing them since. Their leaders were arrested on false terrorist charges. Their political meetings were ruined by ISIS suicide bombers. As Erdogan allowed global ISIS volunteers to flow through Turkey in large numbers, many observers believed he was complicit. And much more. No wonder the Kurdish separatist sentiment increased. Which served his purposes perfectly. He has used the “terrorist” excuse as a tool of convenience and power for all purposes, so why not also as a lever against NATO?