Turkey blasts Sweden ahead of NATO chief’s visit to appease Erdogan
Ankara has once again accused Sweden of failing to meet its commitments under a trilateral memorandum signed in June with Finland, in which Turkey would ratify the Nordic countries’ NATO membership if they addressed its concerns on terrorism-related issues.
After a meeting with the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) executive committee on Monday, AKP spokesman Omer Celik said Sweden “makes very beautiful, elegant promises at the highest level,” but they have not taken any concrete action. still.
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not ratified Sweden’s and Finland’ss bid to join the alliance in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on November 4 in an attempt to overcome the impasse ahead of a planned visit by Sweden’s new Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, to Turkey on November 8. The Ukraine conflict and rising tensions between Turkey and Greece will also be on the table.
Kristersson sent a 14-point letter to Erdogan in which he reportedly outlined measures taken to address Turkey’s security concerns. According to Swedish media, Kristersson said that Sweden takes these concerns “very seriously” and wants to “cooperate in the fight against terrorism, including threats from the terrorist organization PKK and all other terrorist organizations and their branches.” He was referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is very active within the ethnic Kurdish community in Sweden.
Reuters, as first reported on the letter dated October 6, said it contained assurances that Sweden had stepped up action against Kurdish militants, with Swedish counter-terrorism police stepping up “work against the PKK. Sweden said it will deal with ongoing extradition requests.”
Turkey is demanding the extradition of several individuals it accuses of having links to the PKK and others associated with Fethullah Gulen, the Pennsylvania-based Sunni imam believed to have masterminded the failed coup in 2016. Sweden has so far reacted positively to such a case involving an impostor.
Kristersson and Erdogan spoke over the phone last week, and Erdogan said he would be happy to host him. However, Celik’s comments indicate that the Swedish government’s steps have not cut any ice.
Sources with close knowledge of the deliberations, speaking anonymously to Al-Monitor, said Stoltenberg is putting pressure on Kristersson’s center-right government formed earlier this month in much the same way he did his predecessors to make concessions to Turkey. “He has been pressuring the Swedes like hell to turn away from their allegedly ‘rigid’ approach to human rights embodied by [former Foreign Minister] Anne Linde. The idea is that he paves the way for Kristersson’s visit” on 8 November in Ankara, said one of the sources.
“Erdogan’s people will love Stoltenberg and his usual talking points,” the source added, saying the Nato chief was “blind” to Turkey’s appalling human rights record and cozy relations with Russia.
Linde, a social democrat, was long one of Ankara’s chief bugbears over her vocal support for US-backed Syrian Kurdish administration in northeastern Syria, which Turkey claims is staffed by “terrorists” because of their links to the PKK.
The prevailing consensus is that Turkey will likely let Finland’s application go ahead but not Sweden’s. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said last week that Erdogan had told her that he had more questions for Sweden than for her country but that there was no question of leaving Sweden behind. Marin and Kristersson promised to join NATO at the same time at a joint press conference in Helsinki last week.
In a operated for the newspaper Expressen, Journalists’ Association chairman Ulrike Hyllert stated that “Turkey invokes democratic principles to put pressure on Sweden. The problem is that Turkey long ago abandoned all democratic principles.”
Hungary’s Viktor Orban, a close Erdogan ally who is also friends with Russia, has signaled that he will allow Sweden and Finland’s membership to be ratified before the end of the year, leaving Turkey on its own.
In an article for a Swedish daily Swedish daily Dagbladet titled “Don’t just listen to Erdogan, Mr. Kristersson,” Bitte Hammargen, an independent Turkey and Middle East analyst and senior associate fellow at the Swedish Foreign Policy Institute, urged his government not to bow to pressure, saying Sweden cannot compromise on the rule of law.
“Many of us have advocated that Sweden should be patient and principled,” Hammargen told Al-Monitor. “After all, if Russian aggression expands in the region, NATO will give its full support to Sweden and Finland, whether they are members or not.”