2024-01-24 06:35:16
The vote in the Turkish parliament ends the long power poker with Stockholm, Brussels and Washington. However, in order for Sweden to be admitted to NATO, the yes from Hungary is missing.
Erdogan blocked Sweden’s accession to NATO for twenty months.
Bernadett Szabo / Archyde.com
After more than a year and a half, Turkey has given up its resistance to Sweden’s admission to NATO. On Tuesday evening, the parliament in Ankara voted clearly in favor of ratifying the accession protocol with 287 votes to 55.
Islamists and leftists reject the request
In addition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic conservative AKP and its ultranationalist alliance partner MHP, MPs from the Kemalist CHP also spoke out in favor of Swedish membership in the North Atlantic Treaty. The largest opposition party traditionally follows a pro-Western course.
Erdogan’s smaller Islamist allies voted against it, in protest against NATO’s stance in the Gaza war, and the national conservative opposition party IYI, for which the Swedish concessions on the Kurdish question did not go far enough. The pro-Kurdish DEM party and smaller left-wing forces, in turn, justified their rejection of the proposal with a pacifist attitude and a principled rejection of any military alliances.
Nevertheless, the result in the end was very clear. The approval by the Turkish parliament always represented a more theoretical than a real hurdle for Stockholm’s application for membership. Given the majority and his unchallenged power in his own camp, Erdogan can push all proposals through parliament. The real decision was therefore made here in the presidential palace.
Now all that is missing is Hungary’s commitment so that Sweden can become the 32nd member of the defense alliance. Enlargement issues in NATO are subject to the unanimity principle, which gives each member state the right to veto.
Applications for membership were a bargaining chip
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who always thinks transactionally, viewed Sweden and Finland’s membership applications, which were made in May 2022 in the wake of the Russian attack on Ukraine, as a bargaining chip right from the start. In principle, strengthening NATO’s northern flank is also in Turkey’s security policy interests.
However, the issue gave Ankara an opportunity to seek concessions elsewhere. At the beginning, the focus was on dealing with Kurdish activists. In fact, it is not only government supporters in Turkey who are of the opinion that many Western states are trivializing the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), despite its classification as a terrorist organization.
Although constitutional principles were never at issue in Stockholm and Helsinki, Turkish demands were certainly met, for example with regard to reforms of anti-terror laws. On March 31, 2023, the Turkish parliament approved Finland’s accession to NATO. There was hope that there would be a breakthrough with Sweden after the elections in May. Ultimately, the dispute also offered the embattled Erdogan an opportunity to make a name for himself in the election campaign.
From the Kurdish question to arms policy
The fact that Turkey remained tough towards Stockholm had less to do with the anger over public Koran burnings in Sweden, even if the incidents played into Ankara’s hand. Rather, it was now about an arms deal with the USA.
Modernizing its air force has long been a high priority for Turkey. Ankara wants to procure 40 new F-16 fighter jets from the USA and upgrade 79 more. However, the deal must be approved by the American Congress. There are great reservations about the alliance partner, which is perceived as increasingly unreliable, especially when it comes to arms issues. That is why American President Joe Biden became Erdogan’s most important negotiating partner in the Sweden/F-16 case.
Biden already stated in the summer that he would support the sale of the fighter jets. However, the American president was unable to give the assurance Erdogan demanded that if Turkey voted yes to Sweden, Congress would in return give up its opposition to the arms deal. Unlike in the Turkish presidential system, the American head of state’s influence on the legislature is limited.
The focus is now on Hungary
Erdogan may have come to the conclusion that he has exhausted his scope on the issue of Sweden joining NATO or that the costs of a continued blockade are too high – especially in view of the tensions caused by the Gaza war and the destabilization of the entire larger region. In the USA in particular, dissatisfaction with Turkey has become increasingly greater in recent weeks.
Now the attention turns to Viktor Orban. The Hungarian head of government had actually declared months ago that his country would not be the last to decide on Sweden’s application for membership. But this is now the case.
Today I sent an invitation letter to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson @SwedishPM for a visit to Hungary to negotiate on Sweden’s NATO accession.
— Viktor Orbán (@PM_ViktorOrban) January 23, 2024
Shortly before the vote in the Turkish parliament, Orban announced that he had invited Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to Hungary for negotiations about joining NATO. In the dispute over EU funds for Ukraine, Orban recently demonstrated that he, too, knows how to unscrupulously use the principle of unanimity for his own benefit.
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