Remember how Turkey was blocking Sweden’s membership in NATO? Well, they’ve now flipped to backing Sweden’s membership.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to support Sweden’s bid to join Nato, the military alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg says.
He said the Turkish leader would forward Sweden’s bid to parliament in Ankara and “ensure ratification”.
Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said: “I am very happy, it is a good day for Sweden.”
Turkey had previously spent months blocking Sweden’s application, accusing it of hosting Kurdish militants.
As one of Nato’s 31 members, Turkey has a veto over any new country joining the group.
Reacting to the news, US President Joe Biden said he welcomed the commitment by President Erdogan to proceed with “swift ratification”.
“I stand ready to work with President Erdogan and Turkey on enhancing defence and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area. I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Kristersson and Sweden as our 32nd Nato ally,” a White House statement said.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock tweeted: “At 32, we’re all safer together.” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Sweden joining would “make us all safer”.
Mr Stoltenberg announced the agreement late on Monday following talks between the Turkish and Swedish leaders in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
The Nato chief described it as a “historic step”, but stressed that a “clear date” could not be given for when Sweden would join the military alliance – as this relied on the Turkish parliament.
Sweden and its eastern neighbour Finland, both long considered as militarily neutral, announced their intention to join Nato in May last year, several months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland formally joined in April.
Why the sudden turnaround on Sweden’s membership?
For one thing, they’re getting F-16s out of the deal. For another, Erdogan is pushing for EU membership again, and needs all the friends he can get if he wants to stop Turkey’s disasterous economic slide. Turkey is hemorrhaging foreign currency reserves thanks to Erdogan’s SuperGenius economic move of lowering interest rates to flight inflation, so maybe a promise of closer ties to Europe might staunch the bleeding a little.
It could also be Turkey’s age-old enmity with Russia coming to the fore. Or maybe Russia’s poor performance has finally led Erdogan to conclude that Russia is the “weak horse.”
But it’s not just Sweden: Erdogan also indicated approval for Ukraine joining NATO as well. “‘There is no doubt that Ukraine deserves membership of NATO,’ Erdogan told a joint press conference with the Ukrainian president in Istanbul early on Saturday, adding that the two sides should go back to peace talks.”
Moreover, NATO seems receptive to letting Ukraine join…just not right now.
NATO leaders said on Tuesday that Ukraine should be able to join the military alliance at some point in the future but they stopped short of offering Kyiv an immediate invitation, angering Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The leaders were meeting at a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as Ukrainian troops struggled to make significant gains in a counteroffensive against the Russian invasion forces occupying parts of the country.
The leaders said in a declaration: “Ukraine’s future is in NATO”. But they offered no timeline for the process.
“We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met,” the declaration said, without specifying the conditions Ukraine needs to meet.
I’m sure one of the conditions is “Not having Russia occupying large parts of your country.”
Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression has made the alliance more united than any time since the end of the Cold War. Clearly it’s in every NATO member’s interest to let Russia dash 50 years worth of Russo-Soviet miltech against the rock of Ukraine, so expect members of the alliance to keep feeding Ukraine’s armed forces for the immediate future.
But having a direct military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia isn’t on anyone member’s preference card, no matter how badly NATO armies would maul their Russian counterparts. So don’t expect NATO membership for Ukraine until the Russo-Ukrainian War concludes.
Tags: F-16, Foreign Policy, NATO, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine
I think Erdogan has the judgment of a late-stage syphilitic howler monkey, when it comes to foreign affairs. Also, economic. Anything, really. He’s a perfect exemplar of a man who knows how to attain political power, and then doesn’t have a damn clue what to do with it. He has been about as good for Turkey as Putin has been for Russia. They’re basically two of a kind… Incompetents flailing away and trying to look authoritative while rebuilding their failed empires. Too bad for Turkey; too bad for Russia.
In any event, I think that Erdogan has reached the conclusion that Russia ain’t the horse to back. He may be mistaken, he may not be. Remains to be seen.
I really don’t see Russia pulling out of the death-spiral. Whatever occupies the space currently filled by the Russian Federation in 2033, I don’t expect it to be anything resembling today’s Russia. I’ve no idea what is going to happen, but the way they’re headed…? I don’t see Putin pulling a victory out of his ass. I don’t see him managing to maintain power for more than a couple of years… The local governors and oligarchs have been green-lit to build their own little military forces, and Prigozin has shown the way.
Although, I suppose that it’s possible that the whole Prigozin thing was a double-triple whammy backflip double-cross for the ages. I can’t see them pulling it off, if it was… The whole thing will likely blow up in Putin’s face.
Root problem he has is that he’s a Russian intelligence guy, and those stupid f*ckers are so twisted that they have to be screwed into the ground when they die. They can’t conceive of doing anything openly and above-board: It’s all got to be a zero-sum game of betrayal and theft. The idea of real alliance and open-dealing? Anathema. This is why they are where they are, and are likely to wind up in the dustbin of history. After a trip through the rape-room of Chinese imperialism…
Heard some talking heads elsewhere say this deal was a ‘poison pill’ because it rests on the accession claims by Turkey to also join the EU, something the EU have denied Turkey for almost 30 years, and which most ‘experts’ believe they will never do.
I think of it this way, if that’s true and the EU was actually willing to consider Turkey’s membership in the Eurozone in exchange for getting them on their side and acquiescing to Swedens application, then the situation in Ukraine is far worse than let on.
That strikes me as a subordinate bargaining position. A current or future assured victory does not require compromise on principles held staunchly for 30 years. it also tells me this war is being planned to last much longer. Much much longer.
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The problem with “right now” admission is Article 5 of the charter – which would obligate all the NATO members to go to war with Russia. So it won’t be until after the war ends regardless.
What’s the point of NATO anymore? I mean, other than the fact that we get used by our “””allies””” to pay for everything, who is the major threat? Russia? Bahahahahaha…. What a joke.
The point of NATO is that every continental nation in Europe with the exceptions of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, and (I think) Greece has been invaded by Russia at some point in the past few centuries, and they’re really kind of tired of it. The point of the US being in NATO is that the last two times major wars broke out in Europe there were potential outcomes that were fairly grim for American security, and forestalling such crises costs less than dealing with them actually happening. And, the talking heads on Russian news have been openly advocating tank columns headed for Warsaw and “finishing the job” in the Baltics since this war started.
Or, as was said back when the alliance was founded: the purpose of NATO is to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.
Judged by that criteria, it’s been astoundingly successful.
I’ve seen some pro-ukrainian commentators suggest that if a specific date on which Ukraine would join NATO was set, Russia would suddenly find itself motivated to not be on Ukrainian territory by that date, making whatever implausible excuses you care to imagine and probably some you can’t. I find that conceivable but risky. The Ukrainians have been doing an excellent job of this so far and the slow-burn takedown of Russia seems more likely to me to produce conditions where Moscow’s stranglehold on power eventually breaks – which is what has to happen if the “evil empire” behavior is ever going to stop.