When Finland and Sweden announced their interest in joining NATO, the two Nordic countries were expected to be accepted quickly as members of the defense alliance. But joining NATO requires consensus approval from all existing members, and Turkey – one of the group’s most strategically important and militarily powerful members – is unhappy.
The reasons for this are complex, emotional and saturated with decades of often violent history.
Historical decision
Unattached, Finland and Sweden announced plans last weekend to abandon the position and join NATO following Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.
The alliance’s official partners in the 1990s, the idea that the Scandinavian countries could actually join the group, made Moscow bristle. NATO enlargement is something he cited earlier to justify invading Ukraine, also a NATO partner.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now has the power to determine the future of the NATO alliance – and its strength and size in the face of Russia’s war.
In fact, Erdogan has already blocked NATO’s early attempt to speed up the candidacy of Finland and Sweden, saying their membership would make the alliance “a place where representatives of terrorist organizations are concentrated”.
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Since 2022, NATO has expanded to include three former Soviet states and all countries of the former Warsaw Pact.
Brin Bache CNBC
The clash has prompted Western diplomats to fight to attract Turkey to the country, as Ankara has presented a list of complaints from NATO ambassadors about its problems with the Nordic countries, particularly Sweden.
What are Turkey’s complaints against Sweden and Finland?
When Erdogan speaks of “terrorists” in this context, he is referring to the Kurdish Workers’ Party or PKK, a Kurdish Marxist separatist movement that has been constantly fighting Turkish forces since the 1980s. It operates mainly in southeastern Turkey and parts of northern Iraq.
The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, as well as by the United States, Canada, Australia and the European Union.
In fact, Sweden was one of the first countries to identify the group as a terrorist organization in 1984.
However, Turkey says Sweden has supported and provided protection for PKK members. Sweden denies this, saying it supports other Kurds who are not in the PKK, but the details are more complicated.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Erdogan’s allegations when it contacted CNBC.
Since 1984, it is estimated that between 30,000 and 40,000 people have died in battles between the PKK and the Turkish government, according to the Crisis Group. The PKK has carried out numerous attacks in Turkey.
Members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are continuing operations against the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU, and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist group, as part of Turkish Operation Source of Peace in Ras Al Ain. Syria on October 17, 2019
Turkish Armed Forces Anatolian Agency Getty Images
As for Finland, Turkey’s opposition to joining NATO seems to be more of an association – the country has a much smaller Kurdish population than Sweden, but its foreign policy is usually similar.
Finland has also banned the PKK as a terrorist organization, but has joined Sweden and other EU countries in halting Turkey’s arms sales in 2019 over Ankara’s military action against Kurdish groups in Syria.
Erdogan is urging Sweden to extradite a list of people Turkey has accused of terrorism. He also wants Sweden and Finland to publicly abandon the PKK and its affiliates and lift its arms ban against Turkey.
For Khaki Akil, a former Turkish ambassador, the Turkish perspective is “very simple”.
“If Finland and Sweden want to join the Security Union, they must give up their support for a terrorist organization [PKK] and not to give them shelter. On the other hand, they must also accept Turkish requests for the extradition of 30 terrorists, [which are] very specific cases. “
Why do the Kurdish people matter to Turkey?
The Kurdish people are often described as the largest ethnic group in the world without a homeland – about 30 million people. Mostly Sunni Muslims, they have their own unique language and customs.
Nearly 20% of Turkey’s 84 million people are Kurds, with some Kurds occupying important positions in Turkish politics and society, although many say they are discriminated against and their political parties face repression by the Turkish state.
Scattered between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, they have been severely persecuted, marginalized and even victims of genocide in the districts where they live – see Saddam Hussein’s chemical gas attacks that killed nearly 200,000 Kurds in Iraq in late 80s. Various Kurdish groups have pushed for Kurdish autonomy and statehood over the decades, some peacefully and others, such as the PKK, through violence.
Kurds celebrate to show support for independence referendum in Duhok, Iraq, September 26, 2017.
Ari Jalal | Reuters
PKK-linked Kurdish fighters in Syria have played a key role in the fight against ISIS, receiving arms support and funding from the United States and Europe, including Sweden. This has caused huge tensions with Turkey, which has since launched attacks on the Kurds in Syria.
“You are talking about people who have been actively fighting Turkey for more than 40 years and killing tens of thousands of civilians in the process,” Muhamet Kocak, an international relations specialist based in Ankara, told CNBC.
“Turkey is not happy about the fact that they suddenly became good boys just because they were useful against ISIS.”
Western governments have hailed Kurdish fighters as allies, and several EU countries have imposed various embargoes on Turkey for targeting Kurdish militias in Syria, highlighting insurmountable differences between the way each country perceives the fighters.
Sweden’s relations with Kurdish groups
At the heart of the tensions between Turkey and Sweden is the way each country defines the term “terrorist,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior scientist at the Gulf Arab Institute in Washington.
“This is not just a matter of Sweden’s liberal policy towards Kurdish refugees and political dissidents and activists. It is also a reflection of different definitions of who and what constitutes intolerant Kurdish extremism,” Ibish said.
“Turkey essentially classifies all Kurdish groups that it does not like very much as organizations on the PKK front. This includes many non-PKK Kurdish entities and organizations in and from Turkey itself, but also the Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria and a number of Iraqi Kurdish groups as well.
Sweden has a long history of accepting Kurdish refugees and asylum seekers, especially political refugees. Several Kurds even have seats in the Swedish parliament.
While most Kurds living in Sweden – who local groups say number up to 100,000 – have no ties to the PKK, the Swedish government supports members of other Kurdish organizations, especially the political wing of the PKK’s Syrian branch called PYD.
Sweden says the PKK and PYD are different, but Turkey says they are the same.
Stockholm also supports politically and financially the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political wing of the SDF, a Kurdish-led militia group set up with US support to fight ISIS in Syria. Ankara says the SDC is dominated by PKK terrorists.
In 2021, the Swedish government announced an increase in funding for Kurdish groups in Syria to $ 376 million by 2023, stating that it remains an “active partner” of the Syrian Kurds and that its funds are aimed at strengthening resilience, human security and freedom from violence “and improving” human rights, gender equality and democratic development “.
What will Sweden do?
With the Swedish election coming in September, the government is unlikely to make any major concessions to Erdogan that would make him look weak, according to some analysts.
Others believe Erdogan will not eventually block Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership, but instead seek to improve his declining popularity at home.
“My suspicions are that Turkey will ultimately, especially if it manages to make a few concessions here and there from Western powers and its NATO allies, will ultimately not seek to block Finland and Sweden from joining the organization.” The Institute of the Arab States of the Gulf I said.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the fact that the war is now focusing on parts of that country that are adjacent to Turkey and of deep strategic and even historical interest to Ankara have reminded many Turks of the value of NATO membership.”
However, NATO may find itself at a standstill for some time if Erdogan is not satisfied with Sweden’s and Finland’s responses to his demands.
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