Ankara accuses Stockholm of failing to fulfill obligations to join NATO

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused Sweden of violating the commitments made in June 2022 in the process of joining NATO. In a statement published on the website of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the Swedish side is sharply criticized for allowing anti-Turkish actions – the recent actions of Scandinavian right-wing radicals and Kurdish organizations: on January 21, Danish politician Rasmus Paludan, leader of the anti-Islamic Hard Deal party, burned the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy. And the Swedish authorities, in turn, authorized the Kurdish demonstration.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the permission to hold a propaganda demonstration by groups associated with the terrorist organization PKK in the center of Stockholm immediately after the dastardly attack on the Holy Quran was allowed. This is a clear violation of the obligation of the tripartite memorandum, which Sweden signed, to prevent the propaganda of terrorist organizations,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website.

The next aggravation of Turkish-Swedish relations over Stockholm’s entry into NATO began on January 13. Then the Kurds held a rally in the Swedish capital, during which they hung upside down an effigy depicting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In response to this, the Turkish Foreign Ministry twice summoned the Swedish ambassador, who was strongly protested. On January 21, Turkish National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that the visit of his Swedish counterpart Paul Jonson to Ankara scheduled for January 27 had been cancelled.

The agreements on the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO were signed in June 2022. According to them, Stockholm and Helsinki promised Ankara to investigate and stop any funding and recruitment activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), recognized as terrorist in Turkey. In addition, Sweden and Finland pledged to consider Turkey’s requests for the extradition of suspected terrorists, while Stockholm separately announced the tightening of anti-terrorism legislation in the country.

Due to such provocations, which did not receive support in the international community, the issue of lifting the Turkish veto on Sweden’s entry into NATO is being postponed, says Victor Nadein-Raevsky, senior researcher at IMEMO RAS. Paludan’s actions caused an extremely negative reaction from both the government and the Turkish public, so the prospects for the development of relations between Ankara and Stockholm have obviously worsened. To normalize the situation, the expert adds, the Swedish authorities will have to make significant efforts. As for the Kurdish issue, in general, Swedish legislation prevents the extradition of PKK members to the Turkish side, but it is incorrect to talk about its strong support by Stockholm, Nadein-Raevsky concludes.

The real scandal will be inflated by Erdogan for his own political purposes, believes Andrei Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council. Erdogan has long been focusing on the value confrontation between Turkey and the Western world, and in addition, what happened gave Ankara another reason to put forward conditions for Swedish entry into NATO. Thus, Erdogan will be able to demonstrate himself to the voters on the eve of the upcoming elections. The issue of Sweden’s accession to NATO will eventually be resolved, continues Kortunov. But the situation will finally be settled not by contacts between Ankara and Stockholm, but by political bargaining between Biden and Erdogan, which will require concessions from the United States in exchange for lifting the veto, the expert concludes.