Sweden's and Finland's NATO membership. :- Everything was a fog - the real game took place in secret

 Wolfgang Hansson

Everything was a fog - the real game took place in secret

PUBLISHED: YESTERDAY 21.28

This is a commentary text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.

COLUMNISTS

While the spotlight was on Sweden and Finland, the real show has been going on somewhere behind the scenes.

Erdogan used the Nordic countries as a tool against his real opponent, Joe Biden.

What concessions, if any, the United States has given Turkey is likely to become clear eventually.

From the very beginning, there was something strange about Turkey's sudden opposition to Sweden's and Finland's NATO membership.

Both countries had received advance assurances about the green light from Turkey. The same message was received by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

When negotiations between Turkey and the two Nordic countries began to resolve the rapidly emerging knots, the Swedish negotiators complained in private that it was difficult to get clear information about what Turkey really wanted from Sweden.

Which was not so strange since it was not Sweden and Finland that were Erdogan's main target.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Photo: AP

His sudden opposition came from the Turkish president realizing that he had a chance to take advantage of the situation for his own gain.

Above all, there are two things he wanted to achieve. Of which we got to witness one in front of an open curtain.

Next year is the election in Turkey. Erdogan is in a good position in the opinion polls. Mainly because Turkey's economy has failed. Inflation is at 73 percent.

Erdogan proclaims victory

So Erdogan needed to show himself on the tightrope and shift the focus away from the Turks' difficult everyday life to the threats to the country's security, specifically the Kurdish terrorist group PKK and the Syrian Kurds who, thanks to the war in Syria, managed to establish their own de facto state in northern Syria. at the Turkish border. Something that Turkey sees as a threat as Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq want to form their own state that would include parts of Turkey's territory.

Turkey now presents it as having succeeded in getting through all the demands it has made on Sweden, despite the fact that most of it seems to consist of already decided terrorism laws and non-binding statements.

Admittedly, it is in the Swedish Government's interest to present what no concessions have been made to Turkey, but even with that in mind, it is difficult to see what Sweden has given away. Apart from a generally farcical attitude towards Turkey.

Erdogan has emerged as the great world leader that other NATO countries must listen to and take into account, thus raising their status at home.

What we have had to content ourselves with guessing behind the scenes is Erdogan's second goal, to pressure the United States on concessions.

The United States is furious

The United States is furious with Erdogan for buying an air defense system from Russia, despite Turkey being a NATO country. The United States has also been outraged by Turkey's double play in the fight against the terrorist group Islamic State, IS, in which the Kurdish YPG's efforts were invaluable to the West.

The United States has punished Turkey by refusing to sell the advanced F-35 fighter jet to its NATO ally. Turkey's desire to buy the older model F-16 has also met with patrol.

We do not know what was said in the telephone conversations that President Biden is said to have had with President Erdogan or in the conversations between Erdogan and Jens Stoltenberg and in the contacts that he in turn had with Biden.

But I am not alone in being convinced that it is in these conversations in secret that the real objections to Sweden and Finland's NATO applications have been swept away.

This whole show has been a smokescreen for the real differences between Turkey and the United States. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and President Sauli Niinistö have on the surface been the main characters, but in reality played the role of extras with little influence over the outcome of the process.

Loss for Putin

In due course, we will get the outcome in the form of American combat flights to Turkey, an invitation to Erdogan to visit the White House or some other form of American concessions.

The United States has also put pressure on Turkey, both publicly and behind the scenes. So one can also imagine that Erdogan did not dare to pursue this further even though he did not get paid.

The enlargement of NATO with Sweden and Finland as new members is the biggest victory so far for the Western military alliance's fight against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, the most tangible loss for Putin.

In the list of demands he submitted to NATO this Christmas, one of the main points was that NATO was not allowed to expand and specifically that Finland and Sweden were not allowed to join. Now Putin is forced to swallow the bitter pill that Russia will get a new 135 km long direct border with NATO.

As Stoltenberg put it yesterday.

- Putin went to war to push back NATO. Instead, he gets more NATO.

The enlargement of NATO is so strategically important that Joe Biden could not possibly let Erdogan stop it.

On the other hand, one should not ignore the possibility that Erdogan may once again try to snatch the lead role when the Turkish parliament will later formally approve Sweden's and Finland's NATO entry.

Of:

Wolfgang Hansson