Turkey had actually given up resisting the admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO. But now President Erdogan is flexing his muscles again because, according to him, Sweden is not complying with the conditions it has set.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again threatened to block NATO’s northern expansion to include Sweden and Finland. He wanted to remind that Turkey would “freeze the process” if the conditions set were not met, Erdogan said. Sweden does not give a good picture. The extension must be ratified by all 30 member states. Erdogan had previously threatened not to submit the accession protocols to the Turkish parliament.
Ankara was the only NATO member to initially block the accession process, citing, among other things, the alleged support of “terrorist organizations” by Sweden and Finland. Among other things, it is about the Kurdish PKK, the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG and the Gülen movement, which blames Turkey for the 2016 coup attempt. After a written declaration by the two countries, Turkey gave up its resistance at the end of June, at least for the time being.
Shortly thereafter, Erdogan said that Sweden had promised to extradite more than 70 “terrorists” – that’s what Turkey calls members of the PKK, YPG or the Gülen movement. However, this was not recorded in the official document. However, the three countries had declared that they wanted to make deportations easier, among other things. From Sweden it was said that Swedish citizens would not be extradited, non-Swedish citizens could be extradited at the request of other countries, but only if this was compatible with Swedish law and the European Convention on Human Rights.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Finland and Sweden had applied to join the Western Defense Alliance. The two Nordic EU countries have been close NATO partners for a long time, but are not members of the alliance. According to information from Stockholm, half of the NATO countries have already agreed to the accession of Sweden and Finland.
