Jean Marcou, Professor of Law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.
While they were delighted to see Finland and Sweden abandon their legendary posture of neutrality and join NATO, the West was unpleasantly surprised to hear a dissonant voice on its southern flank. On May 13, 2022, the words of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, casting doubt on the merits of this project, quickly appeared as the pebble in the shoe of an Alliance that already seemed to be starting off on a new foot. Indeed, the Turkish head of state declared, "We are following developments concerning Finland and Sweden closely, but we are not in a positive frame of mind."
Even if this dissenting opinion comes from just one country, it can be decisive, as a candidate's accession protocols must be accepted by all the organization's member states. Thus, in March 2020, North Macedonia was able to become NATO's thirtieth member state, after Athens had agreed, two years earlier, to negotiate with Skopje an agreement resolving the problem of the state's name, which had left it outside the Alliance since the mid-1990s.
But to return Nordic enlargement, we need to examine the reasons behind the Turkish the Turkish President's reticence towards the Finnish and Swedish candidacies. and Swedish applications. In fact, it can be said that there are a number of immediate explanations explanations that have been openly put forward by the Turkish head of state. more general causes that stem from the dispute between Turks and Americans between Turks and Americans, or the prevailing international context. international context.
The Kurdish question always
Finland and Sweden are not the only states in Europe to be home to a sizeable Kurdish population, but unlike Germany or France, not being members of NATO until now, they have been able more easily to welcome marked political opponents. This explains why Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred in his statement to Scandinavian countries as "safe havens for terrorist organizations", mentioning Sweden in particular, but also referring, outside the zone, to the Netherlands.
The organizations targeted are not just Kurdish bodies, since in addition to the PKK, the organization that has been waging a guerrilla war since 1984, mainly in southeastern Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mentioned the DHKP-C, a far-left organization behind several attacks generally committed in the country's major western cities.
However, Turkey's opposition to the accession of Finland and Sweden intersects with the Kurdish question on another level. The US authorities have just lifted the application of the "Caesar Act" in Kurdish-held areas of north-eastern Syria. This law prevented American companies from investing in Syria, in application of the sanctions imposed on the Damascus regime. They will now be able to establish themselves in territories currently administered by the PYD(Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat - Democratic Union Party) and its YPG militias(Yêkîneyen Parastina Gel - People's Protection Units), which Ankara considers to be the Syrian branch of the PKK.
This decision comes at a time when Turkey is working, in almost the same place, to develop the Syrian areas it has taken control of through a series of military interventions since 2016, and at a time when, in Iraq, the Turkish army is carrying out a series of operations aimed at preventing Syrian Kurds from linking up with PKK rear bases. Indeed, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan referred to these operations in his statement on the candidacies of Finland and Sweden, and affirmed his determination to pursue them.
Conflicting relations with Greece
Another explanation was provided by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to justify his doubts about the Finnish and Swedish candidacies. He considered that " his predecessors had made a mistake" by accepting Greece's Greece to join NATO with Turkey. "And you know the attitude of Greece against Turkey, with the support of NATO", he continued. he continued, before concluding: "We don't want to make a second We don't want to make a second mistake in this respect". The message international dimension, and may also be aimed at the current the current Turkish opposition, whose Kemalist party is strongly attached to the the Atlanticist dimension of Turkish foreign policy.
Greece and Turkey joined NATO in 1952, at the height of the Cold War, as part of the Alliance's first wave of enlargement. the Alliance's first wave of enlargement, to form a key link in its southern flank. key link in the Alliance's southern flank. In spite of this situation, Greece and Turkey Despite this situation, relations between Greece and Turkey remain conflictual. In 1974, when the when the regime of the Greek colonels brought down the regime of of Bishop Makarios on the island of Cyprus and the subsequent intervention of the Turkish army, the two countries came very close to armed conflict. Since then, relations have been unequal, with disputes over the Dodecanese islands the Dodecanese islands, the application of the Law of the Sea to the Aegean, and above all the strategic the strategic balance in the eastern Mediterranean, where the Cyprus crisis crisis has been joined by a major gas game, which has once again raised tensions over the past two years. over the past two years.
It was thought that this Greek-Turkish confrontation had subsided, and that the Ukrainian crisis was helping to bring the enemy brothers closer together. But recent events have shown that this is not the case. In recent weeks, border incidents have multiplied in the Aegean Sea (airspace violations), and Turkey has finally withdrawn from the NATO air exercise "Tiger Meet 2022", currently taking place in Greece. Even though the Greek Prime Minister is due to meet Joe Biden at the White House, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has declared that he will be closely monitoring the results of this meeting, which will certainly influence his final decision on the accession of Finland and Sweden...
More general strategic and military reasons
Although not explicitly mentioned by the Turkish president, there are other explanations for this. The first concerns Ankara's position on the Ukrainian crisis. We know that Turkey strongly condemned the invasion of Ukraine and the violation of that country's sovereignty. But it has not applied the sanctions decided by the West against Moscow, and has constantly played the mediation card. This ambivalent stance has on several occasions been welcomed by Russia, and we can assume that the Turkish government continues to want to maintain good relations with its large neighbor, for both economic and political reasons.
However, the announcement by Stockholm and Helsinki of their wish to join NATO "without delay" was very badly received by Russia, which saw it as "a threat" to its interests, and decided to stop all electricity deliveries to Finland as of May 15. It is therefore likely that the reservations expressed by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with regard to this Scandinavian enlargement will be appreciated in Moscow, and that the Turkish president hopes to reap certain benefits.
Another unresolved issue between Ankara and the United States must be taken into account to understand the Turkish obstacle to the latest Scandinavian enlargement project. This is the US embargo on deliveries of combat aircraft to Turkey. The Turkish government's purchase of Russian S-400 air defense missiles led to Ankara's exclusion from the production consortium for Lookheed Martin's new F-35 stealth fighter, of which the Turkish army had ordered around a hundred.
At a time when it wants to modernize its fighter fleet without delay, Turkey recently asked Washington to allow it to buy new F-16s, while obtaining modernization kits for those it already owns. Congress has so far failed to respond favorably to this request, but it's safe to assume that, in view of the consent it must give to the accession of Finland and Sweden, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sees this as a lever that could enable him to advance some of his own interests.
Prospects for discussion in the context of the forthcoming Turkish general elections
It remains to be seen how far the Turkish president will go in exploiting this argument. For a Turkish veto on the accession of the two Scandinavian countries would risk further isolate the country in the dangerous context of the Ukrainian crisis. After February 24, Turkey's condemnation of Russia's aggression was appreciated appreciated by other NATO members. Subsequently, Turkey's non-participation sanctions against Russia. Today, at a time when the United States is providing unprecedented aid to Ukraine, with the the idea of enabling it to repel the Russian invasion, definitive Turkish opposition to Finnish and Swedish integration into the Alliance would appear to the appear to the West, at best, as an unwelcome double-cross, at worst, as complicity with Moscow, as complicity with Moscow.
That's why, as early as May 14, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavusoğlu explained that Turkey was ready for talks, while Helsinki and Stockholm offered to meet with the Turkish government to provide assurances to allay its concerns. Mevlüt Çavusoğlu nevertheless stressed that (in his opinion) the majority of the Turkish people were hostile to the Finnish and Swedish candidacies, because of the support they would give to the PKK. This Scandinavian NATO enlargement project may therefore also have to take account of Turkey's domestic political context, with general elections scheduled for next year in June 2023, and the ruling party and its leader currently in a poor position in the polls.