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Report: NATO’s Nordic Expansion Stuck at Turkish Roadblock NATO’s Nordic
Expansion Stuck at Turkish Roa... | View Comments (3)

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REPORT


NATO’S NORDIC EXPANSION STUCK AT TURKISH ROADBLOCK


TURKISH PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN IS NOT QUITE TO THE FINNISH LINE ON NATO
MEMBERSHIP.

By Robbie Gramer, a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy.

NEW EMAIL ALERTS FP subscribers can now receive alerts when new stories written
by this author are published. Subscribe now | Sign in

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Robbie Gramer Robbie Gramer

Polish, Swedish, Finnish, and NATO flags are set up.
Polish, Swedish, Finnish, and NATO flags are set up prior to the signing
ceremony of the law ratifying the NATO Protocol on Finland and Sweden’s
membership in Gdynia, Poland, in July 22. Mateusz Slodkowski/AFP via Getty
Images
November 4, 2022, 1:18 PM

Sweden and Finland have launched a new diplomatic offensive to convince Turkey
to approve NATO membership for the two Nordic states after months of thorny
negotiations turned what was supposed to be a smooth path to alliance expansion
into a major diplomatic headache.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg traveled to Turkey this week to meet
with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and lobby him to move forward on the
two countries’ accession. New Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is expected
to travel to Turkey next week to drive the message home.

Turkey is the last of NATO’s 30 members that has voiced opposition to both
countries joining; 28 member states have already approved membership for Sweden
and Finland, and Hungary has signaled that its parliament will greenlight the
bids in the coming months. New members require unanimous signoff from existing
NATO members. The Turkish government has said it wants Sweden and Finland to do
more to crack down on individuals it considers security threats, including
Kurdish militants and those allegedly involved in the country’s 2016 botched
coup attempt, and it has focused most of its criticism on Stockholm.

Sweden and Finland have launched a new diplomatic offensive to convince Turkey
to approve NATO membership for the two Nordic states after months of thorny
negotiations turned what was supposed to be a smooth path to alliance expansion
into a major diplomatic headache.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg traveled to Turkey this week to meet
with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and lobby him to move forward on the
two countries’ accession. New Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is expected
to travel to Turkey next week to drive the message home.

Turkey is the last of NATO’s 30 members that has voiced opposition to both
countries joining; 28 member states have already approved membership for Sweden
and Finland, and Hungary has signaled that its parliament will greenlight the
bids in the coming months. New members require unanimous signoff from existing
NATO members. The Turkish government has said it wants Sweden and Finland to do
more to crack down on individuals it considers security threats, including
Kurdish militants and those allegedly involved in the country’s 2016 botched
coup attempt, and it has focused most of its criticism on Stockholm.

Behind the scenes, U.S. and European diplomats are becoming increasingly
frustrated with what they see as Turkish intransigence over an issue that should
have been resolved months ago, particularly during a dangerous moment in
European security as war rages in Ukraine.

Get the full experience.

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Finnish and Swedish officials are hoping this latest diplomatic offensive can
break the logjam. Both countries have already offered concessions, including
Sweden’s decision to lift an arms embargo on Turkey that it put in place after
Turkey’s incursion into Syria, new pledges to cooperate on counterterrorism
efforts against Kurdish militant groups, and a vow to address Turkey’s requests
for deportation or extradition of those the Turkish government considers
terrorism suspects. Sweden’s new center-right government under Kristersson also
hopes it can make a fresh start in building closer relations with Turkey.



“It’s about trying to set the groundwork, seize momentum so that this could be
finished by the end of the year,” said Henri Vanhanen, a foreign and security
policy advisor to Finland’s center-right National Coalition Party. “We are
hoping there’s new momentum.”

Still, Turkish officials are saying the steps taken so far are not enough,
insisting that neither Nordic country has carried out all the demands Turkey
listed in a joint memorandum released in June.

“These two countries must take important steps on combatting terror because one
of the biggest threats NATO is facing today is terrorism,” Turkish Foreign
Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday
after talks with Stoltenberg, adding that Turkey supported NATO expansion in
theory. “It’s not possible to say right now that the two countries have
completely implemented all aspects of the memorandum.”

“Our counter-terrorism work is a priority, and we take our commitments
seriously,” a spokesperson for the Swedish foreign ministry told Foreign Policy
in an email response. “We have communicated this to all allies, including
Türkiye, and to the NATO Secretary General.”

The “terrorism” issue is of core concern to Erdogan ahead of next summer’s
election, as he must court the vote of Turkish nationalists who are deeply
opposed to Kurdish separatism. Many experts believe that, despite the recent
diplomatic full-court press, Turkey will defer any decision on Nordic NATO
membership until after its 2023 elections.

Read More

Russian and Belarusian troops take part in joint military exercises.


RUSSIA’S STRIPPED ITS WESTERN BORDERS TO FEED THE FIGHT IN UKRAINE

But Finland and the Baltic states are still leery of Moscow’s long-term designs.

Report | Robbie Gramer, Jack Detsch

But Western officials also believe that Turkey’s cold feet are due as much to
Russian economic influence as any purported concern over Kurdish separatists.
Since the start of the war—and a wave of Western sanctions on Moscow—Turkey has
often acted as an economic lifeline for Russia, increasing its purchases of
Russian crude oil, pushing for more (and discounted) Russian gas, and moving
forward multibillion-dollar plans for a Russian-made nuclear power plant.

Turkey has also been one of the biggest exporters to Russia since the start of
the war while also receiving a massive influx of unexplained money from abroad
that is underwriting an otherwise deeply unbalanced Turkish economy. Western
officials suspect Russian money is in part keeping Erdogan’s Turkey afloat.

Stoltenberg, who has sought to balance all sides in the negotiations, became
decidedly less subtle during his trip to Ankara this week, reflecting a growing
impatience with Turkey in the halls of NATO headquarters.



“It’s time to welcome Finland and Sweden as full members of NATO,” he said at
the press conference. “In these dangerous times, it’s even more important to
finalize their accession, to prevent any misunderstanding or miscalculation in
Moscow.”

Western officials agree Russia poses no direct military threat to either
country, particularly with its military bogged down in Ukraine. But defense
planners still fear that a prolonged period of limbo on NATO membership could
open the alliance’s northeastern flank to new vulnerabilities from Moscow that
fall below the threshold of military confrontations. A drawn-out accession
process also undercuts the message of alliance unity and solidarity in the face
of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and nuclear saber-rattling.

“If the alliance can’t coordinate itself and convince its members to admit these
two very capable countries, it reflects badly on NATO as an institution,” said
Kristine Berzina, an expert on European security at the German Marshall Fund
think tank. “And perhaps some of the Russian and Chinese messaging on NATO being
inherently weak … doesn’t seem as wrong then,” she added. “There’s a lot of
reputational concerns at stake for NATO.”

When Finland and Sweden announced their bid to join NATO in May as a response to
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, most alliance leaders and defense chiefs hailed a
new round of NATO expansion as a no-brainer. Both countries had closely
partnered with NATO for years, and they boast some of Europe’s strongest and
best-equipped militaries. They also provide new alliance territory and sea
routes to shore up the defense of NATO’s vulnerable Baltic members that neighbor
Russia and its ally Belarus.

Although adding Finland to NATO would more than double the alliance’s border
with Russia, the Russian government has been stripping down its military in that
region to send its troops to Ukraine. And while Russia remains a top long-term
threat for Finland, Finnish officials don’t believe Moscow has the intent—or
capability—to start any sort of military confrontation in the Nordic region.

“We’re already seen as belonging to the sphere of NATO’s collective security in
one sense,” Vanhanen said. “Plus, we know that Russia is quite occupied right
now with occupying other countries.”




Robbie Gramer is a diplomacy and national security reporter at Foreign Policy.
Twitter: @RobbieGramer


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