Stockholm and Helsinki had hoped for a speedy accession process, but this has been blocked by Turkey, which accuses them of supporting Kurdish groups.
As Sweden and Finland continue their Nato membership talks with Turkey on Monday, June 20, hopes of quick entry into the alliance seem ever more remote.
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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will meet Turkish, Swedish and Finnish officials in Brussels on Monday in hopes of declassifying the dossier ahead of an alliance summit in Madrid next week. “I think it’s possible, but it would be very difficult, it would require a real willingness to compromise on both sides,” Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University, told AFP in an interview.
Turkey demands commitments
Before last month’s surprise Turkish blockade, Stockholm and Helsinki – as well as NATO leaders in Brussels – were hoping for a speedy process to join the alliance, with hopes that the necessary unanimity of the current 30 members would be announced in Madrid. But Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin last week acknowledged the risk of things being “frozen” if the dispute is not resolved by then. “If we don’t settle these issues before Madrid, there is a risk that the situation will freeze. We don’t know how long, but it could be some time,” she said at a meeting of Nordic prime ministers.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, June 15 called for “concrete measures” from the two Nordic capitals, while Ankara asked for written commitments. Turkey accuses the two countries – and especially Sweden – of supporting Kurdish groups like the PKK and the YPG, which it considers terrorists. She is also calling for the lifting of the arms export blockades decided by the two Nordic countries after their military intervention in northern Syria in October 2019, the tightening of Sweden’s anti-terrorist legislation and the extradition of several people she considers terrorists.
Sweden was one of the first countries to designate the PKK as a terrorist organization in the 1980s, but like many Western countries it has expressed support for the YPG, the PKK’s ally in Syria, which was fighting alongside the jihadists of the United Islamic State states in particular. Stockholm has already made some gestures, notably emphasizing that joining NATO could change its arms exports agency’s position on Turkey. Sweden, too, has tightened its anti-terror legislation in recent years, and a new tightening is due to come into force on July 1, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said last week.
An important MP
But with its large Kurdish community, estimated at 100,000 people, “Sweden stands out (…) by being generally more sympathetic to the Kurdish cause,” notes Paul Levin. “From this point of view, Turkey may be right to focus on Sweden,” the scientist points out. “There is a real conflict between Sweden’s vision on the Kurdish question and Turkey’s demands on Sweden,” agrees Li Bennich-Björkman, professor of political science at Uppsala University.
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This dilemma is manifested in a very visible way in the role played by Swedish MP Amineh Kakabaveh, of Iranian-Kurdish origin, in recent weeks against any concession to President Erdogan. Because of the very precarious balance sheet in the Swedish parliament, his vote is essential to secure support for Magdalena Andersson’s minority social democratic government. At present, “there is hardly anyone in Swedish politics more powerful than Kakabaveh,” Elisabeth Braw, a specialist on Swedish defense issues at the American Enterprise Institute, told AFP.
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The MP, who had already reached a deal last November to allow Magdalena Andersson’s election, threatened on Wednesday not to support the government budget and called for a clear promise of an embargo on arms exports to Turkey. But the role of these MPs, who do not belong to any political group, is likely to be diminished with the parliamentary recess leading up to the new elections on September 11 and their very likely non-re-election. “But we lose more than three months,” says Elisabeth Braw.