New NATO blockade threatens
Erdogan counts on Sweden and Finland
10/01/2022 10:33 p.m
Guns are not enough for Erdogan. The Turkish President is urging Sweden and Finland to extradite dozens of alleged “terrorist” suspects. Otherwise he wants to block the Scandinavians from joining NATO once more.
According to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey will only agree to Sweden and Finland joining NATO if the countries “keep their promises”. “As long as the promises are not kept, we will keep our position,” said Erdogan in a speech to the parliament in Ankara. Turkey follows closely whether Sweden and Finland meet the demands made by Turkey or not.
Sweden had announced the day before that it would once more allow arms exports to Turkey. In October 2019, the authority revoked all applicable export licenses for the export of war material to Turkey. No new permits have been issued since then. According to the authority, there is no arms embargo once morest Turkey.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Sweden and Finland broke with their decades-long tradition of military alliance neutrality and applied for NATO membership in May. Turkey had initially blocked the NATO accession negotiations between the two Scandinavian countries. She accuses them of supporting members of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
At the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June, Erdogan gave up his opposition to the admission of the two countries and called on them to “make their contribution” in the fight once morest Kurdish organizations in northern Syria. Among other things, Turkey is demanding the extradition of dozens of “terrorist” suspects. Each of the 30 NATO member countries must ratify accession. Only Hungary and Turkey have yet to agree.
