Why does Erdogan (for the moment) veto the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO?

When Sweden Y Finland announced that they would apply to join NATO—all the member states of the transatlantic organization received the declarations of the Nordic countries with the best of words. All NATO capitals applauded. But one, she retorted.

ankara He claimed to be against it. Sweden and Finland announced that, over the next few days, their foreign ministers they would visit Turkey to solve the problem. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quick to reply. “Needless. Don’t bother coming over here. Neither of these two countries has the right attitude when it comes to terrorism. How could we trust them?”, said the Turkish president this Monday night. And according to experts, the Turkish president’s motives are basically to get concessions from its allies.

Much has to do with the Kurdistan Workers’ Partythe PKK, the Kurdish-Turkish guerrilla that has been at war against Turkey since the eightiesand which has been reinforced with the american support in northern Syria, where the group — under its Syrian affiliate, the YPG — spearheaded the fight against the Islamic State.

Turkey last attacked the group in northern Syria in 2019 and saw several European countries sanctioned its arms sector as retaliation. Now, in exchange for accepting Sweden and Finland into NATO – without the favorable vote of all member states a country cannot enter the Alliance – Erdogan wants lift this veto and that, in addition, the alleged members of the YPG and the PKK be persecuted in Europe.

The latter has not happened because european justice believes that if these alleged PKK members were deported to Turkey, they would not receive a fair trial there.

A strong man

But, of course, there is more: “Erdogan is a strong manand in his strong man style he decided to bring up this topic in public light when he could have done it in private. There are some issues here that are legitimate, but Erdogan has decided to bring this up this way because of his style. In the end Turkey, this country has been part of NATO for 70 years, and has a say in the future of the alliance and who gets into it and who doesn’t. You may or may not like it, but that’s how it is,” he explains. Yoruk IsikTurkish geopolitical analyst.

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With a galloping inflationary crisis in Turkey, with a official inflation close to 70% (and independent companies that place it in the 160%), this expert considers that a crisis of another type, which distracts media opinionmay be beneficial to Erdogan, in low hours of popularity.

“This type of strongman speech has a positive impact on the Turkish electorate, and with the elections scheduled for 2023 we have already entered electoral time. So there are many reasons why he has decided to proceed this way,” explains Isik.