Turkey has not changed its position and continues to oppose Sweden's membership in NATO. The new prime minister is now on his way to Ankara at this time. How far will he bend over backwards to appease President Erdogan?
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| [Turkish capital Ankara] |
As the next Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson has a lot of responsibilities, and at the same time, he has a lot of initiatives planned for the right-wing conservative administration he will lead. On the home front, he pledges to bring the ever-increasing problem of gang crime in the country under control by imposing severe penalties. Additionally, he intends to limit asylum immigration to the smallest possible requirements imposed by the EU, and he intends to combat the energy crisis by constructing new nuclear power plants.
In terms of foreign policy, he has the goal of eventually leading the nation, which has maintained a stance of military neutrality for decades, into full membership in the NATO alliance. This is the reason why he would be flying to Ankara on Tuesday.
Because the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, is the sole person now preventing his proposal from moving further. Despite the fact that neither Sweden nor Finland have recognized Hungary as of yet, and despite the fact that both nations simultaneously filed their application to join the military alliance in May, the OC from Budapest is anticipated to arrive in December.
As a result of this, the newly elected Prime Minister of Sweden, Mr. Kristersson, will be required to polish doorknobs on his first visit to Ankara on Tuesday. It's possible that this is the reason why he has a token of appreciation tucked away in his bag.
Tobias Billstrom, Sweden's Minister of Foreign Affairs, made the announcement over the weekend on public radio that Sweden will be severing its connections with the Kurdish groups YPG and PYD. One does not wish to maintain "dubious" ties.
Both the Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG and its political wing, known as the PYD, have unacceptably strong ties to the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which the European Union considers to be a terrorist organization.
Is this an about-face in Swedish policy toward the Kurds? The YPG and the PYD have had political and financial backing from prior social democratic administrations, and it wasn't until the previous year that Stockholm made the commitment to enhance assistance.
In Syria, the war against the terrorist militia associated with IS also includes the Western defense alliance, which is depending on the assistance of the YPG and PYD.
Now, Stockholm is shifting its position to conform to that of Turkey, which maintains that the PKK, YPH, and PYD are all terrorist organizations. In the northern part of Syria, the majority of the forces engaged in the conflict against terrorists with an Islamist ideology are Kurdish militias.
Klas Grinell, a professor at the University of Gothenburg who specializes in the history of ideas, was recently interviewed by the Tagesspiegel and said that this is not a genuine shift in direction. "Turkey has learned that it can put Sweden under pressure with the deal struck in June and is now doing so," said Grinell. "The negotiations that took place in June were between Turkey and Sweden." He is making a reference to the trilateral agreement that was made between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden.
In June, an agreement was reached on roughly a dozen requirements that the nations of Scandinavia are required to satisfy as part of the entrance procedure for Turkish approval. These restrictions were imposed by Turkey. Erdoan requested an immediate and total halt to all actions carried out by the PKK inside its own nations, a stop to all assistance for the Kurdish groupings YPG/PYD, and the extradition of more than 70 individuals he referred to as "terrorists."
The Foreign Policy Institute in Stockholm issued a warning about Ankara's exceptionally "favorable bargaining stance" not long after Kristersson was elected as the new Prime Minister. The trilateral agreement is a "powerful card" for Turkey in particular since it allows Turkey to maximize its own interests in a number of different areas. Even back then, the conclusion of the investigation was very clear: "The administration in Ankara has already coerced Sweden into conforming to Turkish objectives."
However, Erdoan will not be entirely content with the decision that was taken over the weekend to continue aggressively aligning Swedish Kurdish policy with Turkish interests. This decision was made by the Swedish government. Klas Grinell, on the other hand, is of the opinion that he has come to the realization that Sweden is more than prepared to compromise.
Because maintaining membership in NATO is still the most important priority for the incoming administration.
The claimed resolution to the difficult Kurdish issue, which had been a problem up until that time, did not bring about an extended period of jubilation in Stockholm, however. On Monday, Fahrettin Altun, who serves as the press chief for the Turkish presidential office, penned an opinion article that was published in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet.
In it, he restated Ankara's requirements in more detail. Both lifting its weapons embargo on Turkey and ending its collaboration with terrorist groups are requirements that Sweden must meet.
After suspending deliveries in September due to Turkey's airstrikes on Kurdish YPG militia in Syria, Sweden, for some strange reason, went ahead and made it possible for Ankara to receive weaponry shipments in September.
A rising number of people in Scandinavia are beginning to worry that Erdoan will use Stockholm as a pawn to further his own domestic agenda. According to Grinell, an expert on Turkey from Sweden, Erdoan's requests do not make a difference in terms of security strategy.
There are other, more significant dangers that Turkey faces on a daily basis than the one that Kurdish militants pose from Sweden. But the Turkish President is not budging from his position, and he is still insisting that more than seventy people who are suspected of being terrorists be deported.
These requests, on the other hand, are not feasible since they are not even close to being consistent with the legal system in Sweden. There are a significant number of Swedish citizens on Erdoan's list of terrorists, and it is very difficult to remove them from the country. However, according to Grinell, many members of the Turkish opposition still have the legal right to seek refuge in Sweden despite recent changes to the country's asylum policies.
It is currently regarded in Finland as well that Sweden is susceptible to blackmail by altering its policy in regards to the politics of the Kurds. Eva Biaudet, a Finnish specialist on international affairs, was recently interviewed by the Swedish news station Yle and said that it seemed as if "Erdogan is getting his way."
"The Turkish gains have always been regarded more as Turkish internal policy and less as a political contrast to Finland in Finland," according to one source. Kimmo Kiljunen, another member of the Finnish parliament, said that in the end, participation in NATO should mainly be about strategic collaboration and shared principles.
In a move that has nothing to do with the Kurdish crisis, the newly elected administration in Sweden has already presented Erdoan with another gift. During an interview that took place on Sunday with the daily Expressen, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tobias Billstrom, made it quite apparent that he considered Turkey to be a democratic state.
There are errors, but it is also evident that there were "free elections." According to Grinell, an expert from Gothenburg University, this demonstrates that Billstrom is unaware of the most recent findings in the field. "There is a substantial body of information indicating the exact reverse. Turkey is not a democracy, that much is clear.
But it does not seem that the new Swedish administration is very concerned about these issues. The overriding objective is quite clear: Sweden need to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Therefore, the new administration would be guaranteed of its first victory in terms of its foreign policy.