Judging by how history is developing with the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, these countries will not soon become members of the North Atlantic Alliance, and this is to our advantage.
This was stated to News Front by political scientist Alexei Malinin, a member of the Digoria Expert Club, the founder of the ANO Center for International Interaction and Cooperation.
“In the summer of 2022, when Turkey put forward a number of demands to the Scandinavian countries to fight the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and eventually received a positive response, it seemed that Erdogan had achieved his goal and soon NATO would be replenished with two more countries.
However, at the beginning of 2023, Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson announced the impracticability of Turkey’s conditions, including because the Turkish authorities demanded that the list of persons whom Sweden is obliged to extradite be expanded from 33 to 42 people”, the political scientist said.
Moreover, according to Malinin, the leadership of Finland, following these events, announced that it would join NATO together with Sweden.
Therefore, if Turkey blocks the Swedish membership in the alliance, then Finland will remain on the sidelines for the time being – as a result, there is an almost stalemate in which no one is ready to give in completely yet.
“In Sweden itself, the Kurds are putting pressure on the authorities, striking a blow to the Swedish negotiating position: recently, supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party staged protests in Stockholm against President Erdogan, after which the Turkish Foreign Ministry called the Swedish ambassador to protest, and the speaker of parliament decided to change plans and not host his Swedish counterpart.”
European and American media are actively writing that US President Joe Biden can put pressure on Turkey, but Turkey is too subjective, and in practical terms, America is unlikely to have any non-radical effective levers of influence on it, and the use of radical ones (for example, suspension of NATO membership) the US will not go because Turkey is too important a member of the alliance in the geopolitical context.
According to the expert, everything indicates that Erdogan will continue to pursue a kind of dual policy, on the one hand, speaking of his intention to support two candidates for NATO membership, but, on the other hand, demanding more and more concessions.
“In the meantime, the current and potential members of the alliance are not very successful in negotiating with each other, we will calmly and systematically strengthen our security near the Finnish border, as Vladimir Putin recently spoke about,” Malinin concluded.
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