Veto and NATO

Months-long negotiations on the conditions for Sweden and Finland to join NATO turned out to be not so difficult for the two Scandinavian recruits of the alliance, but to no avail.

Speaking at a press conference in Budapest following talks with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the country's parliament would not ratify the protocol on Sweden and Finland's membership in NATO.

According to him, Finland's application could still be approved at the very least, which cannot be said for sure about Sweden's application.

But since both the leadership of NATO and these two countries initially insisted that they be accepted at the same time, seeing this as a symbolic meaning, this is currently unrealistic.

The Scandinavian sweet couple, who wished to jump into the alliance, holding hands, did not want to break up.

As a result, no one joined the alliance.

Of course, this does not mean that NATO expansion has now been put to rest.

But the euphoria of May-June last year, when it seemed that Stockholm and Helsinki were moving into the alliance by leaps and bounds, has disappeared by today.

The Feast of the Entry first began to look like a holiday with tears in our eyes, and then it ceased to be a holiday at all.

Today it is a bitter aftertaste and a headache.

The decision voiced in Budapest by Mevlut Cavusoglu did not become sensational.

Everything was heading towards that conclusion.

Since last summer, when Ankara listed a list of requirements, the fulfillment of which was of fundamental importance for the Turkish side and was supposed to open the doors of the alliance to Sweden and Finland, the situation has gone in a vicious circle.

All this time, Helsinki was still trying to somehow fulfill the Turkish demands, while Stockholm for the most part only imitated the negotiation process, making polite gestures towards Ankara, but limited itself to this.

Perhaps the Swedish authorities hoped to starve Turkey out.

But it didn't.

To understand why Turkey is so stubborn - whether it is solely about the personal ambitions of the "unformatted" President Erdogan, who more than once became a troublemaker in the alliance, or it is about fundamental things that have an existential meaning for the Republic of Turkey - you need to remember what, Actually, Ankara wanted it.

Shortly after Sweden and Finland submitted their bids to join the alliance at NATO headquarters in Brussels on May 18 last year, the Turkish side presented them with a list of ten demands, the fulfillment of which was supposed to allow Ankara to withdraw its objections to their membership in the bloc.

The fundamental point was the requirement for the adoption by the Scandinavian countries of legislative acts declaring support for Turkey in countering terrorist organizations.

Finland and Sweden were also required to close on their territory all organizations associated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is banned in Turkey, including their assets and media resources, and provide guarantees that they cannot be reopened.

At the same time, the Kurdish organizations operating in Turkey, Iraq and Syria, which Stockholm and Helsinki have always supported, were supposed to become terrorist for Sweden and Finland.

In addition, Ankara's demands included the lifting by Sweden and Finland of the embargo on Turkey's defense industry supplies and the extradition of former Turkish citizens whom Ankara believes are linked to terrorists.

Among them are participants in the July 2016 military coup attempt in Turkey, who received asylum in Finland and Sweden.

As you can see, Helsinki and Stockholm were asked to do their homework with a specific enumeration of tasks that the Turkish side formulated based on the interests of its own security.

Both President Erdogan and his entourage explained the Turkish position in their statements by the fact that the discussions about security going on inside NATO cannot be a one-sided game.

If the alliance is so proud of its unity and concern for the security of its members, then why is it taking a selective approach in the case of Sweden and Finland?

That is, he cares about the safety of two future Scandinavian recruits, despite the fact that no one threatens them, and ignores Ankara's desperate attempts to draw the attention of Western allies to the fact that the terrorist threat has become part of Turkish reality.

At the same time, terrorists have long been using liberal Europe as a springboard to fight their worst enemy, President Erdogan, and Sweden and Finland have become such a welcome haven for them.

However, Ankara's demands were never met.

Moreover, already after the New Year, when new contacts and negotiations between the leadership of Sweden and Turkey were planned and there was still hope that they would be able to agree on something, events took place that became the last straw for Ankara.

On January 11, Kurdish activists continuing their fight against President Erdogan staged a rally in the very center of Stockholm, near the city hall building, with a ritual hanging of a doll of the Turkish leader on a pole.

This was their response to the same list of ten demands: look, Erdogan, what you have achieved.

We are here, we are still in the legal field, no one forbids us, we act absolutely legally, and you will not get us.

Reacting to this incident, President Erdogan said: “Of course, this is happening not only in Sweden, not only in Finland.

As if it doesn't exist in Germany?

Not in France?

Not in England?

Unfortunately, these terrorist organizations continue to appear in each of these countries.”

“We told Sweden and Finland: in order for your membership in NATO to be approved, you need to extradite us about 130 terrorists.

Unfortunately, this was not done, ”the Turkish leader lamented, making it clear that Turkey would not swallow this.

As it comes around, so it will respond.

Noteworthy was the reaction of Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Having condemned the actions of the protesters in Stockholm, who hung Erdogan's doll by the legs on a pole, he limited himself to this.

Say, I don’t like it very much either, but what can I do - the law is on the side of civil activists, we are a democracy, we cannot infringe on rights and freedoms.

Of course, such a "condemnation" for the Turkish side looked like pure mockery.

As a result, something that could not have happened happened: Turkey did not give its green light to admit Sweden and Finland to NATO.

The question arises: what next?

Let's try to simulate the situation.

Until the May presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey, which will determine the vector of its development for the coming years, the approval of applications from Stockholm and Helsinki will definitely not move forward.

Thus, at the July NATO summit, which will be held in Vilnius, the members of the alliance will have to decide what to do next with all this.

In purely theoretical terms, one can, of course, imagine that NATO would violate its own strict rule of consensus decision-making and ignore the Turkish veto.

Nowadays, everything seems to be possible.

Moreover, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg previously stated that Sweden and Finland would become NATO members in 2023 in any case, no matter how Turkey objected.

However, such a slap in the face of Turkey, which in a strategic sense means much more to the alliance than Sweden and Finland combined, would have a loud echo.

It could be the beginning of the end of NATO's relations with one of the countries that at one time was one of its founders.

So NATO is unlikely to allow itself to take and give a damn about the Turkish veto - too much is at stake.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.