Erdogan Throws a Wrench in Nordic NATO Bids

By Declan Garvey, Esther Eaton and Mary Trimble

Thursday, January 26, 2023

 

It’s bad form not to dance with the one who brought you, but what if the one who brought you is being barred from the dance floor by the bouncer? So it is for Sweden and Finland, both of which applied last year for NATO membership, and only one of which seems likely to be accepted anytime soon. Now the question is: Do you leave your friend at the door, or wait in the cold together? 

 

As we reported last year, Finland and Sweden abandoned their long-held neutrality after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, formally kickstarting the NATO accession process in May 2022. (That old edition of TMD is particularly worth re-reading, if only for the definitely true anecdote about a Finnish soldier, some meth, and a high-speed ski chase.)

 

The moves were met with cheers throughout the West, not just because they represented a Putin own-goal, but because the two Nordic countries’ presence in the alliance would be a genuine boon for NATO. “Finland and Sweden are stable democracies with good track records there, but also, they are militarily fairly capable,” Rasmus Hindrén, a former Finnish defense ministry official, told The Dispatch. “They won’t be consumers of security.” Plus, Finland’s massive land border with Russia would present an opportunity, if the need arises, to bring NATO military assets closer to Putin’s doorstep. So what’s the hold-up? 

 

Turkey and Hungary, mostly. Joining the club requires unanimous agreement among the alliance’s 30 members, and 28 countries have formally voted to accept the new applicants. Ankara and Budapest are the last two holdouts—though Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán said in November ratification would be on the agenda when the country’s parliament is back in session come February. Turkey’s reluctance, however, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast.

 

From the day the two Nordic countries announced their plans, winning Turkey’s approval was always going to be the biggest obstacle. Sweden has opened its borders to tens of thousands of Kurdish migrants and asylum seekers over the years, with some going on to become members of the country’s parliament. But also present are militants from what Turkey considers a terrorist organization, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The PKK—which is also designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and European Union—has fought a separatist battle against the Turkish state for decades.

 

A trilateral memorandum between Turkey, Sweden, and Finland—signed last June—laid out a roadmap for quelling Ankara’s fears and getting Turkey to “yes” on the NATO bids. Finland and Sweden promised to cut any institutional ties with the PKK, tighten their counter-terrorism laws, and “address” Turkey’s outstanding extradition requests for supporters of the PKK and opponents of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. There are 130 people whom Turkey is demanding Sweden extradite, and many are political dissidents who have committed no crime in Sweden. 

 

The extraditions remain a major sticking point—but one all parties involved knew would be difficult to resolve. Sweden and Finland “came short of realizing the extraditions Turkey demanded,” Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı, the director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund, told The Dispatch. “[But] all concerned parties were aware [back in July] that this was within the realm of the judiciary, and there wasn’t much that the governments could do.”

 

Finland and Sweden have so far linked their NATO fates by attempting to accede together, but protests in Stockholm over the weekend made the latter’s path much thornier, raising for the first time the possibility one application would be accepted without the other. Days after Kurdish protesters hung an effigy of Erdogan from a lamppost in what Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described as a “sabotage” of the country’s NATO application, police-permitted demonstrations saw a Danish far-right politician burn a Quran in front of the Turkish embassy. After a Swedish prosecutor decided not to press charges against those hoisting the effigy—and additional demonstrations in Sweden on Saturday in support of the Kurds and against NATO accession—Erdogan pulled the plug on the whole project. “It is clear that those who allowed such vileness to take place in front of our embassy can no longer expect any charity from us regarding their NATO membership application,” he announced at a press conference on Monday.

 

Turkey hasn’t expressed similar complaints about Helsinki in recent weeks, putting Finnish officials in an awkward position vis-a-vis their neighbors to the west. “A joint path to NATO is still possible,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told reporters Tuesday. “Somewhere in the back of our minds we are considering options in case a country were to face permanent resistance.”

 

That possibility remains unlikely and unfavorable, from NATO’s perspective. “When you think about the defense of the Baltic Sea region,” Hindrén told The Dispatch, “it’s not ideal if one piece of the puzzle is missing [from NATO membership].”

 

With competitive Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections set for May 14, domestic pressures are also fueling Erdogan’s staunch opposition to Swedish membership. 

 

“The truth is, no matter what they did, Erdogan would never have been satisfied with it before the election because this is really driven by domestic political politics in Turkey rather than genuine grievance,” said Eric Edelman, who served as U.S. ambassador to both Finland and Turkey in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, respectively. “He knows completely that [the protests are] not something the Swedish government did, that they can control.”

 

“This is all an excuse” to avoid the political ramifications of a vote that might seem like he’s being soft on terrorism or caving to international pressure, Edelman added.

 

A top advisor to Erdogan, İbrahim Kalın, said the quiet part out loud last week.“​​We don’t have the numbers,” he told reporters. “The opposition will ask all kinds of questions, and we cannot risk our political capital as we go into elections in the next three or four months.”

 

On the other hand, the PKK is, in fact, a significant terrorist actor in Turkey. The International Crisis Group, an international think tank, estimates that 6,366 people, more than 600 of whom were civilians, have been killed in Turkey in skirmishes with the PKK since 2015. As vice president in 2016, Joe Biden compared the PKK to ISIS, saying both posed existential threats to Turkey. The PKK is a terrorist organization, “plain and simple.”

 

“One thing that may be underappreciated outside of Turkey is the deep emotions of Turkish citizens about the PKK, and the frustration they have when they see the PKK having presence in, if not support from, Turkey’s allied countries,” said Ünlühisarcıklı.  

 

So what ends the stalemate? The spring election, for one thing. A December Al-Monitor poll found Erdogan’s ruling coalition trailing four points to the six-party opposition coalition. But Edelman said it’s still very possible the incumbent hangs on, either because he cheats or because his opponent is so feckless. “They seem hell-bent on nominating the least attractive candidate,” he told The Dispatch. 

 

If Erdogan wins, he can devote the beginning of his five-year term to lofty foreign policy concerns, rather than politically expedient domestic ones. Even if he loses, with Hungary likely to ratify the accession soon, overwhelming international pressure to green-light Sweden and Finland’s membership will be quickly applied to the sole roadblock and the new president, trying to make a name for him- or herself on the global stage. 

 

The U.S. could also have a role to play, though it’s thus far avoided getting too publicly involved in the NATO squabble. Turkey wants to purchase F-16 fighter jets from the U.S., a sale the Biden administration is informally in favor of, but which Congress—including many Democrats—is against. One thing Congress is for: Finnish and Swedish NATO membership. An eventual desire to secure the sale of the planes could influence Turkey’s behavior in NATO, especially when it becomes entirely isolated.

 

“There’s not a direct link, but I think there’s an inescapable indirect link,” said Ünlühisarcıklı. 

 

There are no real indications Finland or Sweden are getting cold feet, and most remain bullish Finland and Sweden will eventually be let into the club, even if some of the momentum of their historic about-face on membership has petered out. “I think there’s every reason to believe, ultimately, that Turkey will give way and allow Finland and Sweden to come into the alliance,” Edelman said. It might just not be on the West’s preferred timeline.