Why is Turkey blocking Sweden and Finland from NATO membership?
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STOCKHOLM — Swedish and Finnish hopes to quickly join NATO have hit a roadblock in the form of objections from Turkey, which has veto power over joining the military alliance.
The three nations reached an agreement on how to proceed in Madrid last June, but Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said that Sweden in particular is not keeping its side of the deal.
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This week, Erdogan postponed accession negotiations indefinitely.
Of NATO’s 30 members, only the parliaments of Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify entry for Sweden and Finland, which are worried about their security after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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WHY DOES TURKEY APPLY TO SWEDISH AND FINNISH MEMBERSHIP?
Turkey says Sweden, in particular, harbors what Ankara says are militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
The PKK is designated as a terrorist group in Turkey, Sweden, the US and Europe.
Turkey wants Stockholm and Helsinki to take a tougher line against the PKK and another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
In Madrid, Finland and Sweden agreed to work harder to fight terrorism, including stepping up efforts to extradite and deport suspected militants.
But Sweden’s courts have blocked certain deportations.
Tensions between Sweden and Turkey have also been heightened by protests in Stockholm which, according to Ankara, are hate crimes, but which are covered by Swedish freedom of expression laws.
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“Sweden has addressed many of Turkey’s concerns and will continue to implement this trilateral memorandum … but it is clear right now that it is not enough,” said Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University.
DOES TURKEY HAVE ANY OTHER GOAL IN BLOCKING ACCESSIONS?
Elections take place in Turkey in May. Some commentators see Erdogan’s stance on NATO as an attempt to divert voters’ attention from a cost-of-living crisis and to project an image as an international statesman.
Other commentators say he may want to use NATO ratification as part of a deal with the US. Ties with Washington are strained by Turkey’s conflict with Syrian Kurdish militants who have US support in the fight against Islamic State.
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Turkey also wants to buy F-16 fighter jets from the US, but faces objections from some members of Congress.
Diplomats, analysts and opposition politicians said Erdogan had been energized by two incidents in Sweden – the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran, and the stringing of an image of the Turks from a lamppost.
WHY DO SWEDEN AND FINLAND WANT TO JOIN NATO?
Sweden and Finland have long pursued a policy of formal military non-alignment, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a rethink.
Finland has a 1,300 km (810 mile) border with Russia, and the Swedish island of Gotland is just 300 km (186 miles) from the home of Russia’s Baltic Fleet in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Match countries see NATO, with its collective defense clause, as the best way to ensure their security.
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WHY DOES NATO WANT SWEDEN AND FINLAND?
Both have relatively strong militaries. Finland has the capacity to mobilize 285,000 personnel and 650 tanks. Sweden has a strong air force and a submarine fleet adapted to the conditions of the Baltic Sea. Strategically, the two countries put a hole in NATO’s front line against Russia while enabling the alliance to project power into the Baltic region.
COULD FINLAND JOIN WITHOUT SWEDEN?
Technically, yes, but defending Finland without strategic land access via Sweden would be difficult for NATO.
Sweden and Finland want to move forward together, but with Turkey’s anger directed primarily at Sweden, Finland may eventually lose patience with the process. Finland’s foreign minister and Sweden’s prime minister have said that joint membership is the priority and that Finland would consider another path only if Sweden’s membership was permanently blocked by Turkey.
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COULD NATO EXPELL TURKEY AND LET SWEDEN AND FINLAND JOIN?
There is no formal mechanism for suspending or expelling members in NATO’s founding documents and Turkey is considered an important strategic ally.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
Analysts expect the accession process to remain stalled until at least Turkey’s election is out of the way.
Even then, progress can be slow. Full implementation of the Madrid agreement could take years, and Sweden has said some of Turkey’s other demands are impossible to meet.
Turkey’s national security problems will not be easy to mitigate, and Sweden’s and Finland’s ability to influence developments is marginal.
But Sweden, Finland and NATO want to avoid a lengthy process.
“Turkey’s actions now favor Putin and … that should be problematic for the alliance as a whole,” Levin said. (Reporting by Simon Johnson in Stockholm, Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara, Anne Kauranen in Helsinki, editing by Timothy Heritage)