NATO fast-track is closed – VG

This is a comment. The commentary expresses the writer’s attitude

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Our Nordic neighbors thought they could use the fast-track entrance to NATO. With good reason. NATO has an open door for new candidate countries. Sweden and Finland meet all membership requirements. Beforehand, there were no objections from any of the 30 member countries.

Until Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saw that this was an opportunity to gain concessions and a political gain.

It should not come as a surprise. Erdogan has used the same tactics many times before and put NATO’s cooperation to the test.

Now NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is trying to untangle them. He was in Finland this weekend and in Sweden on Monday. Intense diplomacy is underway, while hopes are fading that Sweden and Finland will be given the green light before the NATO summit at the end of June.

– The goal is for it to happen as soon as possible, Stoltenberg said after the meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.

On March 17, Stoltenberg said in an interview with Dagens Nyheter that he judged it so that all 30 countries would support Finnish and Swedish membership. The optimism was great. This should be fixed quickly.

But Erdogan stepped on the brake and everything stopped. Now it must be cleaned up “as soon as possible”. It is not possible to set a timeline, and the summit in Madrid is at least no longer a deadline. In the Spanish capital, Erdogan can get all the attention he seeks for his many demands on Sweden, Finland and allies.

More unexpected was that the Swedish opposition, albeit unintentionally, gave Erdogan a helping hand. This happened when a government crisis was recently created, which led to a sharp focus on Sweden’s relations with Kurdish organizations.

It was both unnecessary and irresponsible.

Unnecessary because there are less than 100 days until voters can have their say in the election to the new Riksdag. Irresponsible because the country could have been thrown into chaos at a time when the need for political stability is all the greater.

The government crisis was not really about NATO, Turkey or the Kurds, but about gang crime in Sweden. But since the entire bourgeois opposition supported the Sweden Democrats’ no-confidence motion against Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson, the Social Democratic Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson became dependent on the support of one woman on the sidelines:

The independent representative, Swedish-Kurdish, Amineh Kakabaveh.

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Magdalena did not want to sacrifice a minister and made this a matter of government survival. The government remained seated, but only because Kakabaveh abstained from voting on the no-confidence motion.

At the same time, the Social Democrats maintained previous promises to Kakabaveh about, among other things, in-depth cooperation with the largest political party among Syrian Kurds (PYD). Kakabeveh was very pleased with the outcome.

Problems were that it also fit Erdogan, like hand in glove. This gave him additional ammunition in his attacks on Sweden. He accuses both candidate countries, but especially Sweden, of being too friendly towards Kurdish groups, which he describes as terrorists.

– The Swedish government was forced to hoist the agreement document in a flagpole and wave it in front of the world and Erdogan’s eyes, as Erik Helmerson put it in Dagens Nyheter.

Or as another commentator, Alex Schulman, wrote in connection with the government crisis.

– Swedish politics is unworthy and embarrassing, and must appear completely incomprehensible to voters.

One of the paradoxes is that bourgeois parties that have long advocated for Sweden in NATO contributed to a harmful crisis just when membership became highly relevant.

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The PYD is a political party. The armed branch is called the YPG. Erdogan puts the YPG in the same league as the PKK in Turkey, which is also on the EU’s and US terror list.

But the United States and its allies worked closely with the YPG in Syria. The Kurdish militia played a crucial role in the fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS). One of the countries hardest hit by IS terror was Turkey. Erdogan is now accusing those who fought the terrorists on the ground in Syria of being terrorists themselves.

This is how complicated alliances in the Middle East came to play a decisive role in Swedish domestic politics, and it happened at a very unfortunate time.

As members of the EU, Sweden and Finland also consider the PKK as a terrorist organization. But Erdogan also demands that they break contact with all Kurdish organizations that he labels as terrorists, extradite Turkish opposition figures who have sought refuge in the Nordic countries and also lift the ban on arms exports to Ankara.

The longer the negotiations with Finland and Sweden, it seemed as if Turkey’s list of demands would only get longer.

On Monday, Prime Minister Andersson stated that Sweden is tightening its anti-terrorism laws further. They are also set to soften the export ban on weapons to a future NATO ally.

But it is impossible for Sweden and Finland to meet all of Erdogan’s demands. It is also difficult to see how Andersson can do something that improves relations with Erdogan without at the same time breaking the agreement with the one representative who secured the government a majority in the Riksdag.

Although it is first and foremost Sweden that is the target of Erdogan’s anger, Finland alone will not join NATO.

– We go further hand in hand, as Finnish President Sauli Niinistõ said this weekend.

This will probably work out in the end. This usually happens when Turkey sets foot in NATO. But it does not happen without a sword blow and not until Erdogan has something concrete to show to his own audience. He only knows what is sufficient.

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