The Turkey-NATO ‘serial’ continues

By Kostas Raptis

In the previous days, France, Italy and the US Senate ratified the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, as it was decided at the Atlantic Summit in June in Madrid. In this way, 23 of the 30 members of the alliance have already given the “green light” to the enlargement and its ratification by the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey remains to be done. It is hoped at NATO headquarters that the process will be completed by the end of September.

But no one can be sure until Ankara has had its last word. Because the tripartite memorandum did not resolve everything, with which, on the eve of the Madrid Summit, the “veto” that Tayyip Erdoğan’s country threatened to set, accusing Sweden and Finland of providing cover to “terrorists”, during Turkey, groups such as the Kurdish PKK and the network of preacher Fethullah Gulen.

Already, in mid-July, the Turkish president warned that the ratification of NATO enlargement is not a given, because Sweden and Finland “do not present a good image”. tripartite memorandum) to extradite, mainly from Sweden, 76 persons accused of “terrorist activity”.

The two northern European countries invoke the independence of their judiciary, which apparently operates with a different definition of “terrorism” than the Turkish side. In addition, political reactions to collusion with the Erdogan regime are increasing, especially in Sweden, led by the Greens and of the Left party In early July, at a rally on the island of Gotland, members of the Left appeared to wave flags of the PKK and the Syrian affiliate of the YPG (which is heavily backed by the West), which Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson called unacceptable.

In yesterday’s statements to the Anadolu Agency, the Turkish Minister of Defense, Hulusi Akar, made sure to remind that his country is first among the allies in the contribution of military forces and fifth in participation in joint missions, while its participation in the fulfillment of NATO’s objectives ” is widely recognized and praised”. He added that Turkey is in no way opposed to the alliance’s “open door” policy, however it wishes it to be implemented based on the principles and criteria of NATO, without ignoring the sensitivities of any member state as to his safety.

In general, the pressure on Sweden and Finland is not going to ease. And the real reason is that in this way Turkey is trying to provoke a total change in the West’s position on the Kurdish problem.

The “serial” in question is intertwined with Turkey’s internal processes, Cambridge lecturer Burcu Özçelik recalls in her analysis in The Arab Weekly. and parliamentary elections, which Erdogan and his party come to with the disadvantage of a rapidly eroding appeal due to the economic crisis. in the last election 12% of the vote and ranked third in parliamentary strength.It remains unknown when Turkey’s Constitutional Court will sit to decide (with a required two-thirds majority) whether to outlaw the HPD.

The co-founder of the party, Selahattin Demirtas, who was imprisoned in Edirne, in an open letter on July 1, called on his competitors and political audience to stand decisively in favor of the peaceful struggle within the Turkish state, in cooperation with the other opposition forces, distancing themselves from logic. of the armed struggle promoted by the outlawed PKK leadership established in the Qandil mountains of northern Iraq. In this way, Demirtas tries to remove from HDP’s opponents, in view of the meeting of the Constitutional Court, the argument that the parliamentary party is nothing more than a “showcase” of the armed organization.

However, if the electoral calculations of the rulers prevail and the legitimate autonomous expression of the Kurdish element in the political sphere is suppressed, the result will be precisely to magnify the appeal of the PKK and the choice of the “armed path” among the new Kurds in the southeast of Turkey.

In other words, “outside” the Erdogan regime can more easily push its line on the Kurdish issue than “inside”.