Turkey has agreed to allow Sweden to join NATO after closed-door negotiations between NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and the leaders of the two countries ahead of a NATO summit in Lithuania.

“Completing Sweden’s accession to NATO is an historic step that benefits the security of all NATO allies at this critical time,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference in Vilnius late on Monday.

Hours after Ankara’s decision was revealed, the administration of United States President Joe Biden announced it will move forward with the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey in consultation with the US Congress, in what seemed to be a trade-off for Ankara’s green light to Stockholm’s NATO membership.

Separately, the Pentagon said on Tuesday that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin discussed his country’s role in Turkey’s military modernisation with Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler on the phone – another indication that negotiations over Sweden’s entry were helped along by a US-Turkey defence deal.

Ankara sought to purchase US F-16s and modernise the ones it already owns as compensation for its 2019 removal from a US-led international programme developing and producing new F-35 fighter jets. Washington sacked Turkey from the popular scheme after its purchase of the S-400 defence system from Russia despite warnings from the US.

The development led to a bilateral crisis between the two allies and Washington’s imposition of sanctions on Turkey in December 2020 in the area of defence under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) – the first time such sanctions targeted a NATO member.

This made Ankara’s veto on Sweden’s NATO bid a thorn in an already rocky relationship with the West for more than a year. Sweden and Finland applied for membership in May 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Turkey’s wider agenda

According to Galip Dalay, a non-resident senior fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Sweden’s membership of NATO has been a subheading in Turkey’s agenda towards the West, and more specifically towards the US.

“Ankara’s expectations over F-16s from Washington have been apparent in this process from day one. However, Turkey also sought a general normalisation and improvement in its relations with the EU countries and the US in general through Sweden’s process, using it as a peg,” Dalay told Al Jazeera.

According to a joint statement released after the talks late on Monday, Sweden agreed to work closely with Ankara to address the latter’s security concerns through annual trilateral talks that include NATO. Echoing a similar, unimplemented deal negotiated in Madrid in 2022, Stockholm affirmed that its “counterterrorism” efforts would continue after its entry into the alliance.

Sweden reiterated that it will not provide support to Kurdish fighter groups, and the organisation Turkey describes as the “Fethullah Terror Organisation”, which is accused of a failed 2016 coup that took hundreds of lives.

Dalay said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to make an example out of Sweden to deliver a message to the West about his concerns over “terrorism”.

“Ankara wants to make Sweden change its laws to be stricter on terrorism to have a spillover effect on other Western allies, pushing them to do same towards the groups Ankara considers as terrorists,” he told Al Jazeera.

Dalay also said Erdogan achieved what he wanted regarding Turkey-European Union ties by linking, practically in writing, Ankara’s issues with the bloc to Sweden’s NATO bid.

The joint statement referred to Turkey’s frozen EU accession process, with Sweden expressing support for efforts to revive the membership talks. Ankara has been a membership candidate since 2005, and negotiations have not progressed since 2016.

The joint statement also saw Stockholm promise to “actively support efforts” in two areas Ankara wanted improved: modernisation of the EU-Turkey Customs Union and visa liberalisation.

Ankara has condemned repeatedly the increase in rejected Schengen visa applications by Turkish citizens, demanding visa-free travel for Turks in Europe.

EU officials say Ankara needs to work on the bloc’s criteria to get the concession and claim that there is no ill-treatment of applications by Turkish citizens.

Turkey has also sought for years changes in the customs union it has had with the EU since 1996. The EU has not agreed to start talks over the issue despite calls from Ankara and commerce communities in both countries.

Erdogan links EU and NATO issues

Before Vilnius, Erdogan linked Stockholm’s NATO bid to restarting Turkey’s EU talks – a request rejected by Washington and Berlin right away.

“First, come and open the way for Turkey at the European Union and then we will open the way for Sweden, just as we did for Finland,” he said before he travelled on Monday.

Marwan Kalaban, the director of policy analysis at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, said the Turkish president knew that this condition would not be met when he made the statement.

“Erdogan tried to make the best out of this bargain from Sweden, the US and the EU,” he told Al Jazeera.

He added, however, that Erdogan also wanted to avoid a possible wider crisis with the West as his country went through its worst economic turbulence in decades.

Dalay said Erdogan increased the stakes by linking Turkey’s EU and Sweden’s NATO ambitions to acquire the backing he wanted over the customs union and visa-free travel.

Ankara has not made an official statement on the deal yet and Sweden’s NATO entry will only happen after ratification by Turkey’s parliament, for which there is no timeline yet.

The closed-door deal means the topic is off the agenda of the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius.

A similar deal agreed in Madrid in June 2022 did not lead to membership for Sweden as Ankara was not satisfied with Stockholm’s implementation of the agreement, especially its efforts to counter “terrorism”.

Since then, Sweden made changes to its constitution and other laws to strengthen regulations in the area, taking a tougher stance on gatherings in support of banned groups and attempts to collect or provide financial aid for them.

Source: Al Jazeera

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again reversed course, approving Sweden’s bid to join the legacy European military bloc, having been promised a brace of classic F-16 fighter jets.

This new deal was hammered out at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, and included a vow by Türkiye to avoid quarrels with ancient enemy Greece also a NATO member.

During a 12 July press conference on in Vilnius, Erdogan touched on several issues important for Türkiye, including ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid, its F-16 jet deal with the US, and a “balancing act” between combatants Russia and Ukraine. Erdogan agreed to forward ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid to Parliament when it reopens in October, on the condition Stockholm provides a “road map” before ratification.

Ankara’s approval coincided with Sweden pledging support to update Turkey’s customs agreement with the European Union and its desire to approve visa-free travel throughout the EU for its citizens, a tricky matter in the current political climate, where third-world immigration is a hot potato.

Erdogan also hopes (against hope) that Stockholm will clamp down on members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a grouping banned as “terrorists” in Türkiye (others call them “freedom fighters”).

Sweden may have reluctantly agreed, while in fact they are not known for clamping down on anything – average Swedes walk the streets of many cities today scared half to death of violent crime and Islamic “no-go zones”. Few migrants convicted of violent crimes in tolerant Sweden ever get deported, either, instead enjoying the “country club atmosphere” of Scandinavian prisons.

Before departing for the NATO summit, Erdogan also said that he would arrange to fulfill requirements for Türkiye to join the European Union; after decades of reluctance, traditionally neutral Sweden is about to join, following Finland’s entry earlier this year.

Turkey has been eager to benefit from EU membership in one form or another since 1987, but current members are reluctant to let the large nation in.

Hours after Ankara said it would allow Stockholm into the bloc, the US announced it would proceed with the transfer of elderly F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, the likely trade-off for Ankara’s green light. However, US President Biden cannot go ahead with the deal for the planes without approval from the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees. Some US lawmakers have concern on how Turkey might deploy any US-provided fighters, considering its objectives in warring Arab countries often diverge from those of the USA.

Note that a dozen second-hand 47-year-old designed F-16 “Fighting Falcons” were sold off by Netherlands and Norway by each country as they were retired in 2022, in the “F-16 End Life of Type (ELOT)” program. These fighter aircraft will be going to the Ukraine, to support their campaign against Russian. The Dutch will meanwhile be acquiring either the troubled F35 fighter jets or possibly the more conventional F22 for their air force.

Greece, alarmed at such developments, has sought guarantees that the Turkish F-16s will not be used against Athens, as the two nations are engaged in an oh-so-familiar maritime waters dispute over the Aegean Sea.

While Greece has accused Turkey of violating its airspace more than 10,000 times last year, Turkey has threatened areas in Syria held by Kurds, a minority which the U.S. considers useful allies.

Taking advantage of the cooperative climate at the NATO Summit, Turkey resumed talks with Greece, after more than a year of tensions between the historic foes, at odds for decades over maritime boundaries, overlapping claims to their continental shelves and the endless and impossible Cyprus dispute. Nevertheless, Greece provided emergency assistance to Türkiye following the recent catastrophic earthquake, calming tensions somewhat.

Following the Vilnius meeting, the neighboring NATO members pledged to “activate multiple channels of communication” to settle issues; a joint statement announced a high-level Cooperation Council scheduled for Thessaloniki this fall.

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After a six-hour-long debate, parliament approved Sweden’s NATO future membership with 269 in favour and 37 against – marking the official end to Sweden’s 200 years of non-alignment in foreign policy. For Sweden to officially join, Turkish and Hungarian approval is still needed.

“It goes without saying that we will be able to join in Vilnius,” said Billström about the NATO summit on 11-12 July in a debate before the vote.

Sweden’s NATO membership has already been ratified by 28 of 30 NATO states, and Sweden has strong support from the US, said the minister. “This strength that we have behind us is so significant that it is possible to make such an assessment,” he added.

If Sweden does not become a member by summer, it would call into question NATO’s open door policy, according to which all countries in Europe that meet NATO’s conditions and contribute to strengthening the defence alliance can become members, the foreign minister said.

It is unclear if and when Turkey will ratify Sweden’s membership as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared earlier in February that he would not accept Sweden’s application if Stockholm does not ban Quran burnings – something the Swedish government has so far refused to do.

Hungary’s parliament, for its part, is expected to vote on Finland’s NATO membership bid on Monday but will hold off on Sweden. Billström said he had received no explanation from Budapest about why it is treating the countries separately.

“If this were to become a reality, I think an explanation from the Hungarian side is required.”, he said.

No from the Left party and the Greens

Of the eight parties in the Swedish parliament, only the Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) and the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) voted against joining the alliance.

“It is problematic to enter into a military alliance with countries that are not democracies and where we see democracy shrinking on a daily basis,” said Håkan Svenneling from the Left party, referring to Turkey and Hungary.

“They are now trying to use our application to silence our voice for democracy and human rights,” said Svenneling, adding that both countries stalling ratification for Sweden is unsurprising.

Swedish NATO membership also increases the risk of being drawn into wars and conflicts that the country has not chosen, he added. “Swedish foreign and security policy should be decided in Sweden, not at NATO headquarters in Brussels, not in Washington by the US President or in Ankara by the Turkish President,” Svenneling declared.

But for Foreign Minister Billström, “NATO membership is the best way to safeguard Sweden’s security” in light of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

However, both opposition parties are also critical of Sweden’s inclusion in the NATO nuclear umbrella.

“NATO is said to be built on using nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Our MPs do not believe in this doctrine and believe, on the contrary, that it can lead to more conflict,” said Green MP Jacob Risberg, adding that “The government has abandoned the view that nuclear weapons make us more insecure.”

Sweden’s NATO application has been submitted without reservations, though the government’s NATO proposal states that there are “no reasons to have nuclear weapons or permanent bases on Swedish territory in peacetime”.

“I feel completely secure with the wording that has now been made. There is no movement anywhere to impose either bases or nuclear weapons on Sweden,” said Morgan Johansson, Social Democrats’ foreign policy spokesperson and former Justice minister when Sweden submitted its NATO application.

If the issue of deploying nuclear weapons in Sweden were to arise, it would have to be raised in Parliament, he added.

“But as long as we Social Democrats have something to say about it, I want to say that we will not go there,” Johansson concluded.

Source: euractiv

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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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