Turkey’s blocking of Sweden’s NATO accession has nothing to do with the desecration of the Koran in Stockholm
Yesterday, after a cabinet meeting in the Turkish capital Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Sweden should not expect Turkey’s support for its NATO membership after allowing protests in Stockholm that involved the burning of a copy of the Koran near the Turkish embassy.
In a major milestone for NATO, both Sweden and Finland officially requested membership after seventy-two years of neutrality, a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. However, all of NATO’s 30 members must approve the proposal for it to be accepted – including Turkiye, which has not yet given its support.
Turkiye’s decision to delay or block Swedish and Finnish membership does not stem from the anti-Turkiye or anti-Erdogan protests in Stockholm or the burning of a copy of the Koran by a far-right politician. Nor can Turkey’s behavior be explained by Sweden’s approach to those whom Ankara regards as terrorists. Turkiye’s decision has more to do with her relations with Washington and Moscow than with Stockholm.
If the concern that Ankara caused Sweden had been matters of principle for Turkiye, the country would have declared its withdrawal from NATO. The complaints the country had against Sweden are not unique, as similar problems exist with several other members, including the United States, Germany and France.
Ankara’s blocking of these states’ entry is a tactical move aimed at balancing its relationship with Russia and using it as leverage against the West to extract concessions. The success of this move is particularly relevant for President Erdogan in the context of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey in May 2023.
Three main factors behind Turkiye’s veto:
Around the time Sweden and Finland revealed their intention to join NATO in April 2019, President Erdogan had three goals he was trying to achieve: to strengthen Turkey’s balance between Russia and the West in light of the Ukraine conflict; to launch an offensive against US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria; and to secure an agreement with the United States that would give Ankara access to F-16 fighter jets, as well as reinstate Turkey’s affiliation with the F35 program.
When Stockholm and Helsinki applied to become members of NATO, the Turkish president seized the opportunity. The reasons for vetoing the accession were invented later.
1. Transform the bilateral issue into one at the international level: Turkiye first tried to transform a bilateral issue between Turkiye and Sweden into a multilateral one, primarily with the intention of involving the United States in the discussions. As a senior government official confirmed to me, Ankara saw this situation primarily as a multilateral concern.
2. Using the veto as leverage in Ankara’s balancing act: Subsequently, Ankara tried to use its veto against the Swedish and Finnish memberships to maintain a balance in its relations with Russia. Turkiye and Russia are engaged in adversarial cooperation in at least three active conflicts on three continents, as well as multi-level trade and defense relations. The balance of power between Moscow and Ankara is asymmetrical to Turkey’s disadvantage.
The significance of Sweden and Finland becoming NATO members is obvious to Moscow, which is concerned that these countries could become potential launching pads for NATO forces against Russia, as they are geographically close to the country and share a border with it.
3. To rally support for a Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria: In the early days, Turkiye not only pushed for the West or Russia to green light a Turkish ground invasion against the US-backed Kurdish-led forces in Syria but to actively support it.
Turkey’s refusal to accept Swedish and Finnish membership helped prevent Washington or Moscow from taking a stronger stance against Turkish incursions into Syria. When Turkiye announced its opposition to the new NATO applicants, Moscow had indeed sent diplomatic messages through Foreign Minister Lavrov that Russia understands Turkey’s security concerns in Syria.
A US official later confirmed to me that it was not Washington that blocked a Turkish incursion at the time either. Ankara had later abandoned a full incursion due to other political and military factors, which I will address in a separate article.
Asymmetric political costs of blocking in Sweden and Turkey:
There is no domestic political cost for President Erdogan to block Sweden’s entry into NATO. That is unless there is a strong, coordinated backlash against the Turkish government from NATO countries, which could potentially have domestic political consequences. Despite the public rhetoric, the risk of a well-orchestrated backlash against Turkiye remains minimal.
Conversely, securing Turkiye’s approval could have a number of political consequences for Sweden, such as an increase in right-wing extremist activity and intensified political and societal divisions within the country.
This debacle highlights, among other things, Sweden’s lack of ability to understand and correctly address a figure like Erdogan, which reveals the nation’s political and intellectual shortcomings.
In the end, President Erdogan cannot keep the Finland-Sweden issue in the air forever. Soon he must decide whether to allow or permanently block their membership, betraying either Russia or the United States. This means that he has a limited opportunity.