Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is pretty much the most popular man in town these days – if that city is Vilnius in Lithuania and if you’re popular because everyone has to be nice to you, have a really good friend come with you in Military Alliance.
By the way, Sweden is this really good friend. And ahead of next week’s major North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) summit, the Turkish leader has so far refused to drop his objections to Sweden’s NATO accession, potentially indefinitely sidestepping Stockholm’s membership and leaving NATO’s longed-for moment of unity and cohesion is spoiled in Vilnius.
All NATO members have to agree to new ones, so Erdoğan’s opposition is effectively a veto. The Turkish President is not alone; Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is also holding out, but Hungary has signaled that this will not be the last obstacle. Erdoğan continues to insist that Sweden has not done enough to crack down on people in Sweden who have ties to Kurdish militants and other groups Turkey classifies as terrorists.
Sweden has tried to appease Turkey by, among other things, passing a new anti-terror law that came into force on June 1. But Erdoğan’s definition of terrorists is fairly broad, often including dissidents and others critical of his regime. And even if Turkey has a case, Sweden has to abide by due process and the rule of law and can’t just, say, extradite a bunch of people on a whim. A recent Koran burning outside a Stockholm mosque has heightened tensions as Turkey interprets it as Sweden’s liberal stance on anti-Islamic protests rather than freedom of expression.
Sweden, Side by side with NATO alliesHe has used furious diplomacy to try to persuade Turkey to accept Sweden’s offer. Swedish and Turkish officials held talks on Thursday, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg saying they had made “good progress” but issues remained unresolved. Stoltenberg is due to meet with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Erdoğan on Monday, a day before the Vilnius summit begins.
Until then, there will be a standstill. This means that what everyone has really wanted – for Sweden to join NATO, becoming its 32nd member – may not happen in Lithuania this week. This will deny NATO its unity narrative in Vilnius, something the Alliance is keen to convey.
But it’s more than just the plot: Sweden is cooperating and planning closely with NATO, but remains outside the alliance and its mutual defenses. If Erdoğan doesn’t back down here after everyone commuted to meetings with Turkish officials, after Swedish concessions and during the military alliance to match the Super Bowl, it’s not clear when he will – which could leave Sweden outside at that point Alliance Bogged Down NATO is trying to redefine and strengthen itself in the face of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Erdoğan will be Erdoğan. But this has real implications for NATO.
It shouldn’t have been like this. Last summer, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden abandoned their long-held non-aligned stance and announced their intention to join NATO. The two countries of the European Union have long worked closely with the Alliance, and both are strong, stable democracies – typically the ideal formula for smooth membership.
Erdoğan saw it differently. The Turkish leader turned down their offers because he believed the country supported Kurdish groups he sees as terrorist organizations and because the country had imposed arms embargoes on Turkey. At last year’s NATO summit in Madrid, Turkey, Finland and Sweden agreed on a memorandum of understanding that was apparently intended to resolve these issues.
But it didn’t last. Although the Turkish leader eventually allowed Finland to join (which it did in April), he continued to block Sweden’s accession on the grounds that it was still not tough enough on terrorists.
The hope was that Erdoğan, who won a major re-election victory in May this May, was no longer looking for easy political victories and would therefore soften his Swede stance ahead of the forthcoming summit. But just because Erdoğan won another term didn’t mean he would become another president. Experts said he would see the election as a way to reshape relations with the West – albeit on his own terms. That meant few Turkish observers believed he would be so quick to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership after the election, at least not without something in return.
These could be F-16 fighter jets. The Biden administration has made it very clear that it will happily allow Turkey to purchase upgraded equipment, and has not even been particularly discreet when using it as leverage in efforts to get Sweden into NATO. “I congratulated Erdogan. He still wants to work on something on the F-16. I told him we want a deal with Sweden, so let’s do it,” Biden said after Erdogan’s election victory in May.
But it’s not that simple. Ultimately, Congress has a say on arms transfers, and it has continued to object to an F-16 deal over the standoff between Sweden and NATO, but also other concerns, such as the anti-democratic relegation of Turkey and Syria. Turkey balks at the idea of a possible quid pro quo, basically stating that as a NATO ally, it needs these F-16s for its security and the security of the alliance, which is independent of the Sweden issue.
Overall, it is not entirely clear what will convince Erdoğan. Sweden has made concessions, including tightening its anti-terrorism laws and agreeing to extradite some people, including at least one person convicted of a drug-related crime in Turkey in 2013. (The person claims the real reason for her extradition is her ties to the PKK.) But Sweden is also trying to walk a tricky path, as both its government and citizens have insisted they will not compromise on the rule of law to appease Turkey.
Erdoğan, who has undermined these institutions and principles in Turkey, may not necessarily understand Sweden’s perspective, and he and his officials continue to insist they want to see more action against terrorists. “The core of the alliance is the institution of mutual trust and solidarity. Without them, it’s pointless to talk about other issues,” Erdogan said in a speech on Friday, according to Al-Monitor.
Of course, many NATO allies would probably say the same thing to Turkey: where is the trust and solidarity, especially when we need it most? Officials and pundits appear more cautious in their optimism ahead of Vilnius, hoping Turkey will change their minds but may not acknowledge it. Even if Erdoğan drops his objections – and Orbán follows suit – their respective parliaments have yet to ratify the membership, so Stockholm will have to wait a bit longer to officially join the alliance.
Few NATO members currently want to deal with Turkey’s obstruction. Officials in NATO governments see Sweden’s membership as a priority, but the pact has many other pressing issues on its agenda when they meet in Vilnius. Countries will make defense spending commitments, something the Alliance has long striven for but struggles to achieve.
Added to this is the thorny issue of security guarantees for Ukraine, as Kiev seeks more concrete assurances for future NATO membership. The members of the alliance disagree on how concrete they want to proceed against Ukraine. They show their support for eventual membership, but without making too many promises, since Kiev is in a war with an uncertain outcome. Many of these debates will take place behind the scenes, and while some of them will become public, they will not be as public as this drama between Turkey, Sweden and NATO.
Because of this, there is an urgency to resolve this standoff in Sweden. The longer the feud drags on, the greater the reputational damage it inflicts on an alliance looking to reinvest in its defenses and also to reassess its purpose and mission in Europe and beyond. It’s a small boost for Putin, whose aggression in Ukraine has fueled this Nordic expansion of NATO, but who will benefit from Turkey’s policy of obstruction. Putin is always keen to exploit divisions in the alliance to his political advantage – and he could probably be exploiting that right now.
Sweden’s membership would be a boon to Alliance security; All Nordic countries would be involved and that will reshape planning and security in the Nordic, Arctic and Baltic regions. And the worst time for a would-be NATO member is when it has declared its intention to join but is not yet a member. Sweden is free to cooperate at will, but is not covered by mutual defense protection. While the threat is unlikely to be particularly urgent, it’s still an awkward position for Stockholm, especially since Finland and Sweden originally planned to do this together.
NATO really doesn’t want this to drag on for fear of a North Macedonia situation. But right now it’s just not clear what exactly will persuade Erdoğan to let Sweden sit at the table of the cool kid military alliance.
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