The leader of the Turkish MHP – the cooperation party of the AKP, the party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – has almost set peace in the Middle East as a condition for admitting Sweden into NATO.
– If lasting peace is achieved between Israel and Palestine and an independent Palestinian state is recognized, if Israel agrees to pay compensation and Netanyahu is brought to justice in The Hague, we can say OK to Sweden’s NATO membership, says MHP leader Delvet Bahceli to Turkish media, according to Bloomberg.
Demanding trump cards
The statement should nevertheless not be seen as yet another objection to Sweden, but as a domestic political move in light of the fact that a rift has appeared in the alliance between the MHP and the AKP, says Paul Levin, who heads the Department of Turkish Studies at Stockholm University.
– The possibility of a veto gives Turkey a kind of trump card that different actors can use in different ways. Gaza is a very popular issue in Turkey, letting Sweden into NATO is not. The connection between them may not be logical, but it is politically gifted, he says.
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Connects to F-16 purchase
The AKP needs the support of the ultra-nationalists in the MHP in the National Assembly. Changes in the government and increased efforts against organized crime have created discord in the government, and Levin believes that this could lead to further delays for Sweden. He has information that this is what happened when the foreign affairs committee postponed the processing of the NATO application.
– As I understand it, MHP indicated that their representatives would vote no. Thus, the AKP postponed the vote, he says.
Levin has previously learned that the committee will take up the matter again next week, but the likelihood of that has subsequently decreased, he says.
An alternative for the AKP is to cooperate with the opposition party CHP, but so far the ruling party has not wanted to do so. In addition, the whole thing is complicated by the fact that Erdogan has linked Sweden’s NATO admission with an American approval of the sale of F-16 aircraft to Turkey.
2023-12-09 05:23:58
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