Dhe Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t need a big stage for big announcements. Wherever he travels, the cameras of the major television stations are there live. It was the same on Sunday evening when he was talking to young Turks in Bilecik, in north-western Anatolia. He said, almost casually, but nonetheless purposefully, two sentences that resonated far beyond Turkey.
The first sentence was: “If necessary, we could give different messages to Finland.” He was referring to Turkey’s veto against Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
The second sentence: Sweden will be “shocked to see our answer, but Finland should not make the same mistakes as Sweden”. For the first time, Erdogan has signaled his willingness to treat the Finnish candidacy separately from the Swedish candidacy.
New level of escalation
The mistake that Erdogan understands Sweden is making is refusing to extradite the people Turkey wants in exchange for agreeing to join NATO. The list is long, it includes 120 people whom Turkey calls “terrorists”. Among them are Swedish citizens.
Erdogan himself repeatedly mentioned the name of Bülent Kenes. The Turkish leadership considers him to be the organizer of the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Kenes ran the English-language newspaper “Today’s Zaman” and is considered a close confidante of the preacher Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in America. However, the Swedish Supreme Court ruled out Kenes’ extradition in December, infuriating Ankara.
The cold war between Turkey and Sweden reached a new level over the weekend. On Saturday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a travel warning for “countries in Europe”. It was responding to incidents in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, where pro-Kurdish groups had demonstrated and a right-wing extremist burned a Koran.
The travel warning speaks of an increase in anti-Turkish protests by “groups with connections to terrorist groups”. What is meant by this is the banned PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization.
Fodder for Erdogan’s election campaign
In front of the young people in Bilecik, Erdogan also chatted about the statesman’s sewing box on Sunday evening. He said to the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson: “If you don’t extradite these terrorists, I’m sorry.” Whether he would really be sorry if he prevented Sweden from joining NATO is an open question.
In any case, the current parliament in Ankara will probably no longer deal with NATO’s northern expansion. However, ratification by Parliament is a prerequisite for Turkey’s approval.
Erdogan has set May 15 as the date for the parliamentary and presidential elections. At the beginning of May, MEPs will meet for the last time in this legislative period. It is possible that the next parliament will hold its inaugural session before the next NATO summit meeting in mid-July in Vilnius. It is unclear which government will then be in office in Ankara.
Before that, Turkey will hardly move. Because a caricature competition, which a Swedish newspaper had advertised on Erdogan, caused new resentment. That won’t help Sweden’s NATO bid, but it will help Erdogan’s election campaign.
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