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As he faces a fierce battle for re-election, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has raised new objections to Sweden and Finland’s membership in NATO.
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By Steven Erlanger
BRUSSELS – Hopes that Turkey will soon ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership have faded, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accelerating amid a bitter re-election fight.
Turkey will vote in mid-May for the president and parliament, and opinion polls show Erdogan and his Islamist Justice and Development party facing difficulties, largely due to a disastrous economy and high inflation.
While facing demanding national situations unfolding ahead of the vote, Mr Erdogan has sought to draw attention and raised new objections to Sweden and Finland’s membership in NATO, suggesting he could further delay the process after his initial risk of blocking them. Sweden and Finland insist that in combination they will remain the course.
Sweden, which has a culture of openness to refugees from Kurdistan, is a specific target of M. Erdogan, given Turkey’s war against Kurdish separatism, namely the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Ankara and Washington are a terrorist organization.
Erdogan has less unrest with Finland, though he demanded, and won, tougher counterterrorism legislation in Sweden and Finland. protest near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21. Politician Rasmus Paludan is suspected of having “certain connections in his neighborhood” with Russia, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Saturday.
Designed as a provocation, but legal under Swedish law, the burning of the Koran sparked fury in the Muslim world and Erdogan seized on it as another reason to question Sweden’s membership in NATO. His government canceled trilateral talks with officials from both countries and warned that Finland could get Turkey’s approval if it separated its offer from Sweden.
This premise was rejected by Finnish leaders, adding influential President Sauli Niinisto, who was instrumental in organizing the joint bid, given the dependence of the two former non-aligned countries on their security plans.
“It doesn’t make sense to pay attention to comments that come with words like ‘maybe’ and conditionals,” M said. on Monday. Niinisto told Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, adding that “we are sticking to our plan. “
He said Finland and Sweden would do it together, telling Yle, Finland’s national broadcaster, on Thursday that if nothing happens after Turkey’s elections in May, “we will have to communicate person-to-person” with M. Erdogan.
Haavisto underlined this policy at a press conference in Helsinki on Monday, saying: “Our most powerful desire is to join NATO with Sweden. “
Mr. Erdogan plays on deep-seated, and largely bipartisan, emotions in Turkey about the perceived risks of the PKK and Kurdish separatism, and seeks to use his influence to convince Sweden to tighten its laws, or even extradite some of the wanted Kurds. then in Turkey.
He also appeals to his most devout base and presents himself as a defender of Islam by accusing Sweden of tolerating the burning of the Koran. The opposition in Turkey is varied and has many parties, but is sometimes in favor of NATO enlargement to Sweden and Finland. .
NATO expects Turkey to vote to allow Sweden and Finland to join the alliance at their next summit in Lithuania in mid-July.
Johanna Lemola contributed to the report.
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