Will Turkey lift the veto on Sweden or not so it can join NATO? As the Atlantic Alliance increases diplomatic efforts to deter Ankara ahead of the July summit in Lithuania, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated his blockade of the Nordic country.

The Turkish president gave the green light to Finland’s entry in April, but maintains his veto on Sweden because, according to Ankara, Stockholm has not yet met a series of anti-terrorism requirements. “Sweden may have some expectations but it does not mean that we will meet them. In order for us to meet these expectations, Sweden must meet the part of it,” Erdogan told the Turkish press, on his return from an official trip to Azerbaijan. These statements were published during the fourth meeting of diplomatic representations of Turkey, Finland, Sweden and NATO in Ankara, which has the objective of negotiating Sweden’s accession to the Alliance. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said of the meeting that “some progress has been made in the talks” in Turkey “on Sweden’s accession to NATO”, without giving further details.

In recent weeks Sweden has tightened its anti-terrorism law, one of Ankara’s demands to accept its entry into NATO. Turkey has been highly critical of Stockholm’s support for Kurdish politicians whom Ankara views as terrorist groups and a threat to its national security. The Swedish government even decided on Monday to extradite a Turkish citizen residing in Sweden, convicted in 2013 for a drug offense in Turkey. The defendant assures that the cause of the extradition request is his support for the Kurdish guerrilla PKK, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization.

The Stockholm measures have sparked protests across the country from a mix of anti-NATO protesters, anti-terror law groups and groups in defense of Kurdish politicians. “Where is the anti-terrorist branch of NATO? NATO has to deal with this (the protests) at once. After not dealing with it, we cannot treat them (Sweden) like the blue-eyed boy in Vilnius,” Erdoğan stated. The Turkish president stated that the Turkish delegation would express Ankara’s anger at Wednesday’s meeting in Ankara alongside NATO, Sweden and Finland. “(The delegation) will give you this message: ‘This is the opinion of our president, don’t expect anything different in Vilnius,’ he said.

“All eyes are on the Vilnius summit but Turkey is in no rush. It uses Sweden’s membership as a tool to negotiate other issues with other Alliance members,” explains Ilhan Uzgel, a Turkish foreign policy analyst. Uzgel believes that the negotiations center on Ankara’s request to buy F-16 fighter jets from Washington. Both countries have been in a tug of war for months between the ratification of Sweden and the sale of the planes. US President Joe Biden has refused to link the two issues, although he has admitted that Sweden’s entry into NATO would facilitate the selling process in Congress.

Atlantic sources acknowledge that an agreement for 32 allies to be in the Lithuanian capital and not 31 plus a guest is downright complicated. As they indicate, Erdogan seems to want to reserve that summit to perhaps announce that he is lifting the veto, as he did just a year earlier in Madrid, but the Turkish assembly could not ratify it before September or even October, after the summer break. This same Wednesday, the group created in Madrid for the “implementation of the trilateral memorandum”, with representatives of the Turkish, Swedish and Finnish governments met in Ankara. And although they reiterate those advances that Stoltenberg spoke of, there is not much hope of an unexpected advance that would allow the celebration, reports Pablo R. Suanzes from Brussels.

“I don’t think Turkey can negotiate the sale before ratifying Sweden’s entry because the process to approve the US sale is very slow, it has to go through Congress, the presidency, etc.”, explains Uzgel. The analyst points out that after Erdogan won the Turkish presidency again in May, the Turkish government intends to turn towards a more diplomatic policy. “Ankara is in no hurry to ratify Sweden. Erdogan has made a turn to repair his diplomatic relations with many countries, but he also knows that he is not in as much of a hurry to approve Sweden as he is with Finland. In the end, Sweden does not directly share a border with Russia.” , Add.

For its part, Sweden has reiterated that it has done “everything possible” to meet Ankara’s demands and hopes that its entry will be ratified before the NATO summit. The Swedish government has announced that it will allow the Alliance to deploy troops on its territory even before formally joining the group. Sweden’s entry into NATO would allow the Alliance to secure the Baltic Sea island of Gotland, located opposite the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and three NATO allies Estonia Latvia and Lithuania. The island had been demilitarized for decades until the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

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