The scene is from July, just hours before the opening of the annual NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Smiling, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announces, to everyone’s surprise, that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just agreed to lift his opposition to Sweden’s candidacy for the Atlantic Alliance. The Norwegian diplomat added that this was a “historic” day that was immediately welcomed by American President Joe Biden, who praised the “diplomacy, courage and leadership” of his Ankara counterpart.
Two days later, at the end of the summit, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make it clear that “in the fall, when the work of the legislature resumes, the Speaker of the Parliament…” [turc] will put the Stockholm Accession Protocol to a vote,” before adding: “We want this process to be completed as quickly as possible.” »
The months have passed and the observation is clear: Turkey has still not ratified Sweden’s accession and it is very unclear whether Ankara will keep its promise. The Turkish president sent the memorandum of understanding to parliament at the end of October. But the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is largely dominated by the head of state’s party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), on November 16 postponed debates on the text until a later date without further clarification.
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No real explanation was provided. We had barely found out that a motion had been submitted by AKP MPs stating that the negotiations with Stockholm were “not sufficiently mature”. Committee chairman Fuat Oktay later told reporters that the Swedish ambassador could be invited to the next meeting to provide additional information about his country’s measures to address Turkey’s security concerns. And then nothing more.
The only thing that is certain is that the authorities in Ankara warned the Atlantic Alliance a few days ago that the vote would not take place before the meeting of NATO foreign ministers, which will take place on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 November in Brussels to be held.
“Distrust, disagreements and conflicts of interest”
A stranger situation than that of Turkey, which is in principle a NATO country, but which consciously wants to remind at every opportunity that it is a difficult and indomitable ally, bent on protecting its interests or even its profits indefinitely maximize if it means exposing one’s own contradictions and exhausting the alliance’s “strategic patience.”
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