NATO today invited Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance in one of the biggest changes in European security in decades, after Turkey gave the go-ahead yesterday to lift the veto and enable these two governments to be part of the Atlantic alliance.
(Also read: They lift the veto for Finland and Sweden in NATO: will there be tension with Russia?)
The leaders of the three countries signed a memorandum within the framework of the alliance summit in Madrid that opens the accession of the two Nordic nations to NATO, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushed Helsinki and Stockholm to abandon their traditional neutrality .
For this to happen, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan laid down his conditions in a meeting lasting several hours on Tuesday with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.
“Turkey got what it wanted,” celebrated an official statement from the Turkish presidency after reaching the pact.
The negotiation
One of Turkey’s main demands calls for Nordic countries to stop supporting Kurdish militant groups present in their territory and to lift their bans on some arms sales.
Turkey will demand from Finland and Sweden the extradition of 33 people who belong to the movements of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is described as terrorist by Ankara and its Western allies, and Fetö, the acronym for the movement founded by the preacher Fetullah Gülen, installed in the United States and considered by Erdogan as the instigator of the July 2016 coup attempt.
“For a firm defense of our common values, we need partners beyond the Euro-Atlantic area. What applies to NATO, also applies to a larger community. Together we are stronger.” #NATOSummit https://t.co/8NAWy5IaJL
— Sauli Niinistö (@niinisto) June 29, 2022
Turkey got what it wanted.
“In the framework of the new agreement, we are going to ask Finland to extradite six PKK members and six Fetö members, and Sweden to extradite ten Fetö members and eleven PKK members,” Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said.
The statement from the Turkish presidency said that the agreement reached on Tuesday meant “full cooperation with Turkey in the fight against the PKK and its affiliates.”
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In the memorandum signed in the presence of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Helsinki and Stockholm confirm that it includes the PKK in terrorist organizations and promises not to support its allies in Syria, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The Nordic countries responded to the extradition requests by saying they will examine them “quickly and thoroughly”, “taking into account” the Turkish intelligence services.
NATO response
The NATO Secretary-General noted that the terms of the deal meant that Sweden would step up its work on Turkey’s extradition requests for suspected fighters and amend Swedish and Finnish legislation to toughen its approach on this issue.
Secondly, Stoltenberg assured that Sweden and Finland would lift their restrictions on arms sales to Turkey.
Both Finland and Sweden agreed “not to impose embargo restrictions in the field of defense industry” on Turkey.
A senior official in the Joe Biden administration indicated that Turkey had not linked its long-standing request for F-16 fighter jets to securing the deal. However, Erdogan said before leaving for the Madrid summit, where he met with Biden, that he would pressure Washington to purchase those military aircraft.
The United States previously blocked Turkey from acquiring F-35 fighter jets after Ankara bought Russia’s S-400 missile defense system in 2017..
In this sense, Erdogan warned that he would discuss with the US president again the acquisition by Ankara of these Russian S-400 air defense systems, as well as the modernization kits from Washington, among other issues.
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