Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says he will recommend Turkish parliament vote in favour of Finland joining alliance

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has lifted his veto on Finland’s application to join Nato, a move that will strengthen the west’s ability to withstand any future Russian threat across the Baltic Sea but leaves Sweden’s parallel bid for Nato membership unresolved.

After a choreographed meeting with the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, in Ankara, Erdoğan said he would recommend to the Turkish parliament that it vote to back Finland’s application to join. He said he hoped the vote would happen before the Turkish elections in May.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland, which shares an 832-mile (1.340km) border with Russia, was forced to reconsider the foundations of its foreign and security policy and apply for Nato membership. It would be the 31st member of the alliance.

At a joint press conference, Erdoğan said Turkey’s concerns about Kurdish terrorist activity in Finland had been addressed. “Turkey is one of the strong defenders of Nato’s open-door policy,” he said. Finland had taken “concrete and authentic steps” to meet Turkey’s security concerns, and “with Finland’s membership Nato will become stronger”.

Niinistö said to Erdoğan: “Now we have got an answer, thank you,” but he added: “Finnish Nato membership is not complete without Sweden.” He expressed the hope that both countries would be permitted to join Nato at its summit in Vilnius in July.

Erdoğan has been demanding that Finland and Sweden do more to clamp down on Kurdish activists, but his objections about Sweden’s behaviour are more deep seated.

On Thursday, Niinistö visited Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş province, which was at the centre of the 6 February earthquake that killed more than 48,000 people, and he said he was shocked by what he had seen.

Hungary is now the only other Nato member still to approve Finland’s membership, and it is expected to relent next week rather than be left isolated within the alliance.

Sweden and Finland, for diplomatic and security reasons, had originally treated their application last May as a simultaneous request since joint membership had a compelling reinforcing military logic. But after talks with Sweden, Finland decided reluctantly to press ahead with a membership bid of its own.

The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said on Wednesday: “I don’t hide the fact that we would have preferred ratification together and hand in hand. But we respect that each country makes its own ratification decision.”

The decision complicates Nato defence planning, but the complexity depends on how long Turkey keeps Sweden in the Nato waiting room. Jans Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary general, said he could not consider the circumstances in which Nato would not come to Sweden’s defence if attacked by Russia.

Erdoğan has been seeking assurances from Finland and Sweden to eradicate members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), an organisation designated as terrorist by the European Union. He said there should be “no place for any terror group no matter what their name or aim”.

Last June, Finland and Sweden signed a 10-point memorandum with Turkey to address Ankara’s security concerns, but its contents were open to interpretation as to what it required the Nordic countries to do to clamp down on Kurdish activists.

In December, Finland loosened its strict embargo on arms exports to Turkey imposed in 2019 after Turkey’s attack on northern Syria.

Erdoğan, politically weakened at home before elections in May, may hope that by accepting Finland’s application he can show he can cooperate with the west and dispel suggestions that his nationalism has damaged the country economically.

Finland’s parliament has already approved joining Nato, but the bill would need to be signed into law by the president within three months, setting a deadline on how long it needs to wait.

Hungary’s president, Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly delayed approving Sweden and Finland’s membership, accusing both countries of spreading lies about the state of democracy and the independence of the judiciary in his country. Hungary is looking for EU funds to be unlocked, but Orbán may not relish being the last country blocking Nato’s expansion and his officials have indicated that parliament will discuss the issue on Monday. Orban met Erdoğan on Thursday.

US officials believe Turkey has been trying to use its Nato veto power as a bargaining chip to extract extraneous concessions, including that the US Senate lift its objections to the sale of F-16 jets. US senators, sensing that Erdoğan may be heading for defeat in the elections and eager to see a new, more cooperative president in his place, are not willing to grant Erdoğan any pre-election favours.

Source: The Guardian

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Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that are yet to ratify the accession of Finland and Sweden.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested that Ankara could soon ratify Finland’s application to join NATO and allow the country to join the military alliance separately from Sweden.

Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, Finland and Sweden abandoned decades of nonalignment and applied to join the alliance. All 30 NATO members have approved their applications, and 28 have ratified their accession. Only Turkey and Hungary have yet to do so.

Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too soft on groups that it considers to be “terror” organisations and existential threats, including Kurdish groups.

Turkish officials have also been angered by a series of demonstrations in Sweden, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish embassy.

Ankara has said, however, that it has fewer problems with Finland’s membership.

Asked by reporters on Wednesday whether Turkey could ratify Finland’s membership after a visit by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto this week, Erdogan responded: “God willing, if it is for the best.”

“Whatever the process is, the process will function,” Erdogan said. “We will do our part. We will keep our promise. We will meet with the president on Friday and fulfil the promise we made.”

Niinisto is scheduled to arrive in Turkey along with Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto on Thursday when the two officials will tour areas affected by devastating earthquakes that hit parts of Turkey and Syria last month.

Niinisto and Erdogan are scheduled to meet in Istanbul on Friday.

The Finnish president said he expects Erdogan to confirm Turkey’s backing, according to the Reuters news agency.

“We knew that when Turkish President Erdogan on his part has decided to ratify Finland’s NATO membership, he wants to meet and fulfil his promise president to president,” Niinisto said in an email to Reuters

Meanwhile, the Turkish president’s positive tone was also echoed by two Turkish officials who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

“It is highly likely that the necessary step for Finland’s NATO membership will be completed before [parliament] closes and the election is held,” one of the officials said.

The Turkish parliamentary session is due to end in mid-April ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled on May 14.

“Positive messages will be given to Finland’s president during his visit,” the second official said.

The United States and other NATO countries are hoping the two Nordic nations will become members of the alliance at a NATO summit due to be held in July 11 in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

Source: Aljazeera

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After a year since it invaded Ukraine, now Russia is in the brink of massive loss. On February 7, 2023, Kyiv claimed that Russian forces have suffered their deadliest day so far. Ukrainian military increased running tally of Russian military deaths from 1,030 overnight to 133,190. On the other side of the war, Russia claimed they had inflicted 6,500 Ukrainian casualties in January. Although this figure cannot be independently verified, it gives widespread skepticism of significant Russian success. 

The fatalities proved that NATO and the western countries’ assistance to Ukraine worked. Not only were they sending heavy weaponry and ammunition in end 2022, European Union (EU) countries also injected 52 billion euros into military, financial and humanitarian aid. Germany has become the largest donor country in Europe to the Ukrainians.  

“Until now, the EU’s support to Ukraine since the start of the war has always lagged behind that of the United States. This has changed in recent weeks, as the total value of EU commitments now exceeds those of the U.S. The large new EU pledges are a welcome development, given the major role of this war for European security,” says Christoph Trebesch, head of the team producing the Ukraine Support Tracker.  

EU supports also came in the form of sanctions against Russia. Since the invasion on 24 February 2022, EU has adopted nine packages of sanctions, which included individual sanctions, economic sanctions and diplomatic measures. Major Russian banks also have been removed from the international financial messaging system Swift (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) which in turn impacted and delayed payments to Russia for its oil and gas exports. 

Growing support provided by EU for Ukraine exacerbates Russia’s current situation. Mikhail Zvinchuk, a former Kremlin military press official and creator of Rybar Telegram channel stated on a Russian TV show, shared on his Twitter account @wartranslated at the end of January, that the Airborne Forces lost “40-50 percent of its staff” between February and September 2022.

As a follow up to massive loss and current failures, it is predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for second part of mobilization to be deployed in major offensive around spring-summer 2023. Based on the report signed by Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, 300,000 to 500,000 Russian troops would be in addition to the hundreds of thousands of conscripts drafted during the fall campaign in late 2022. 

According to Ukrainian news portal, Pravda, Russian total loss until 9 February includes: 

• approximately 135,010 military personnel, 
• 3,255 tanks, 
• 6,468 armored combat vehicles, 
• 2,244 artillery systems, 
• 463 multiple-launch rocket systems, 
• 232 air defence systems, 
• 295 fixed-wing aircraft, 
• 285 helicopters
• 1,967 operational-tactical UAVs, 
• 796 cruise missiles  

Unfortunately, there is no sign that the war is coming to an end and Moscow certainly will do whatever it takes for victory on the battlefield. It also has an objective to pit NATO members against each other. Turkey already rejects the idea to accept Sweden’s NATO membership bid for harboring Kurdish millitants after bloody coup attempt against President Erdogan in 2016. And Russia sees this as an opportunity to stir discord. 

Sweden believed that Moscow is behind the Quran-burning stunt committed by Rasmus Paludan. Swedish foreign minister insisted this played directly into Russia’s hands while, Finland’s former prime minister, Alexander Stubb suggested that Russia might have been behind the Quran burning incident and warned of hybrid warfare tactics. Paludan, an anti-Islam activist who is holds both Danish and Swedish citizenship also reportedly burnt the Quran in April 2022. He repeated his vile act in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm on January 21, 2023.  

Paludan later confirmed to Swedish media that the idea to burn the Quran was proposed to him by Chang Frick, a 39-year-old pro-Putin Russian journalist who also guaranteed that any damage costs that Paludan could sustain as a result of this protest will be covered. Frick confirmed that he paid for Paludan but claimed he did not believe that the protest had jeopardised Sweden’s NATO application. 

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