Fortunately for Finns who want to join NATO, the president of Turkey has often turned out to be a practical autocrat in the end, writes HS’s foreign correspondent Pekka Hakala.
Finland and the acceptance of Sweden’s NATO membership in the military alliance’s 30 member countries has progressed at an astonishing pace. Many thanks go to the President of Russia for that to Vladimir Putinwhose senseless war of aggression has united the ranks of NATO.
Ratification is still pending in seven member countries: Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece and Turkey.
One of these countries can certainly find the prime minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán kind of scumbags whose advances can never be guaranteed. However, the only one who can seriously throw himself in the crosshairs is the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Erdoğan announced in May that he does not accept the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. In June, Finland, Sweden and Turkey signed a “Memorandum of Understanding” on enhancing counter-terrorism work. After this, Erdoğan has threatened to freeze the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden if the countries do not keep their “promises”.
With these by the promises, the Turkish president means giving in to the extradition demands put forward by Turkey, which concern the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK and Erdogan’s opponent living in Finland and Sweden by Fethullah Gülen supporters.
Erdoğan may well consider most of his opponents to be terrorists, but the man who led Turkey for nearly two decades, first as prime minister and then as president, cannot be so foolish as to imagine that his Nordic partners share these views. The real reasons for Erdoğan’s resistance are probably elsewhere.
In the first comments, Turkey’s opposition was characterized as an evening milking. According to this idea, the Turkish leader wants something in return for his positive stance, for example US fighter jets. The most suspicious Finns thought that Erdoğan was plotting with Putin behind NATO’s back.
However, the best explanation might be that Erdoğan wants to continue leading Turkey, preferably for the rest of his life, and preferably leading a strong Turkey. Like Putin, he is a modern autocrat, whose power does not come from God or inheritance, but, according to their own view, from the people. For such a leader, the support of the people is important and therefore the opinion of the people must not only be listened to but also manipulated and used to advantage.
Erdoğan has cleverly exploited the disillusionment of the majority of Turks with Western cooperation. He became prime minister at the same time as the European Union accepted Cyprus as a member, regardless of the opinions of the Turks.
The trend of the AKP party in Turkey has continued: of the Metropoll Research Institute in an April survey, 65 percent of Turks said they did not trust NATO. Only 26 percent said they were confident.
As president, Erdoğan has presented himself as a sultan leading the heir state of the Ottoman Empire and at the same time a kind of Mediterranean Kekkos, whose role is to act as a mediator for peace between Ukraine and Russia and for the unhindered passage of grain cargoes.
In March in the survey almost half of Turks considered the USA and NATO to be responsible for the war in Ukraine, only a third blamed Russia. The overwhelming majority sees Turkey’s role as that of a mediator.
Presidential the political future still does not look rosy. Turkey’s economic difficulties and massive inflation have eaten into his support considerably. Since last fall, opinion poll after poll has predicted that the president and his party may lose next summer’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
On the other hand, Erdoğan’s reign has continued for so long and after the alleged coup attempt in 2016 so firmly that even the speeches of the opposition representatives are often skeptical. You don’t always believe in your own possibilities.
The president, on the other hand, resorts to the same recipe that has been working for years. In this politics, Finland and Sweden are stick horses, the consequences of whipping them are not necessarily very serious.
Helsinki and to Stockholm’s relief, Erdoğan has often shown himself to be quite the pragmatist.
A model example is the crisis in relations with Russia, which began after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet on the border with Syria in November 2015. In August of the following year, Erdoğan kindly traveled to St. Petersburg to apologize to Putin for his blunder.
What’s the point, it’s the trade that’s worth it.
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