What is Ankara trying to achieve by hindering the expansion of NATO
The foreign ministers of Finland, Sweden and Turkey held talks in Berlin to resolve differences over Finland and Sweden's plans to join NATO.
The desire of Stockholm and Helsinki to join the North Atlantic Alliance has been expressed for more than one year. But it escalated against the background of a special military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. This desire has raised objections from Turkey, a long–standing NATO member.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters on arrival in Berlin that it is "unacceptable and outrageous" when potential new NATO members support the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK):
"The problem is that these two countries openly support and interact with the PKK (mainly with Kurdish militias operating in Syria. – V.I.) and the People's Defense Units (YPG). These are terrorist organizations that attack our troops every day. The overwhelming majority of the Turkish people are against the membership of these countries in NATO and ask us to block this membership."
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto expressed confidence that a solution would eventually be found. Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde told the Swedish news agency TT that she would try to sort out any misunderstandings. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg promised both Scandinavian countries a warm welcome and a quick accession procedure. But Turkey unexpectedly blocked this process on May 13.
THE ORIENTAL ART OF SPECULATION
There is nothing unexpected in all this. Ankara is again trying to use the current situation to organize a big bargaining with the "collective West" on a number of issues of principle for itself.
And the presence of PKK cells in Sweden and Finland in the list of Turkey's global claims is far from the first place. Such cells exist in many European countries under one name or another.
Secretary General Stoltenberg, who was unable to attend the Berlin meeting because he passed a positive test for the COVID-19 coronavirus, spoke by phone with interested parties before the talks began. Among his interlocutors were US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the Foreign Ministers of Turkey, Finland and Sweden.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on May 13 that he could not support the plans of the Nordic countries because they are "home to many terrorist organizations." But Erdogan's spokesman told Reuters that Turkey "has not closed the door."
Naturally, I didn't close it. The accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO will require concessions from Washington and its allies. And Ankara is now simply stuffing the price in an oriental manner before the start of the auction.
What exactly will Ankara demand from the collective West for this "small service"?
TURKISH WISH LIST
If globally and from everyone in the West, then Turkey is seeking the lifting of the informal and formal embargo on military-technical cooperation with it.
And both Americans and Europeans will reluctantly go for it. The administration of President Biden has already made the first step in this direction by sending permission to Congress for the sale of F-16 aircraft to Turkey.
But Ankara needs the lifting of all sanctions and restrictions. Brussels is also specifically required to make a number of concessions – on financing the migration deal and the construction of infrastructure for refugees in northern Syria; on issues of disputed offshore zones in the Mediterranean; on facilitating the conditions of Turkish exports, etc.
The Kurdish factor is also present in this list of Ankara's demands. In particular, the current bellicose rhetoric of the Turks is connected with the recent decision of the White House to lift large-scale sanctions from the Syrian territories that are under the control of the Kurdish YPG militia.
The U.S. Treasury Department is lifting numerous bans from areas mostly under the control of the YPG and its administration, which will allow companies to engage in agriculture, telecommunications, power grid infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, trade, finance and clean energy.
The decree also allows some foreign investment in areas that stretch from Aleppo Province in the northwest to Hasakeh province in the northeast. The decision was announced on May 11 by Acting Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at a meeting of the "global coalition against ISIS" (the organization is banned in Russia), held in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.
"The United States intends to issue a general license in the next few days to promote private economic investment activities in areas not held by the regime, liberated from ISIS in Syria," Nuland said following the event.
Oil from these areas liberated from ISIS can also now be bought, provided that it will not benefit the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad (which in fact will be difficult to prove).
Business with the Assad regime is still generally sanctioned and officially banned. As well as the import of Syrian oil to the United States.
Although Nuland's statement and the decision of the US Treasury did not specifically name the YPG as a beneficiary of sanctions relief, many analysts believe that it is primarily aimed at helping the Kurdish militia. It is he who will benefit most from this decision, liberating areas largely under his control in northern and eastern Syria.
THE SYRIAN FACTOR
Turkey condemned the US move. President Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul: "The YPG is a terrorist organization. The YPG is what the PKK is (recognized as terrorist in Turkey, the United States and many EU countries. – V.I.). Therefore, we cannot accept this mistake of the United States."
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu added that this step by the Americans is a selective and discriminatory approach. "He brings flexibility to these "Caesar's Law" sanctions for certain regions... They do not want to extend relief to the regions controlled by the Assad regime, but they discriminate against regions that his regime does not currently control... For example, this decision covers a region that we have cleared of IS terrorism, but not a region like Afrin, which we have cleared of PKK," Cavusoglu said.
The Turkish minister also asked why the opposition-held northwestern province of Idlib was not included in the territories where US sanctions were lifted, stressing that this is the area where the international community should provide the greatest support.:
"There are millions of displaced people there. We are building briquette houses there for Syrians. Many have already moved into their homes. This continues, 100 thousand briquette houses will be built. The international community should support this process."
In itself, this clarification indicates who the Turks consider as their main allies in Syria. The whole of Idlib is under the control of the extremely extremist organization Jabhat al-Nusra (recognized as a terrorist organization in the Russian Federation), which in fact is a branch of Al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation).
So the negative position on the issue of NATO expansion for Ankara is also in the nature of a retaliatory move.
Over the past five years, the US has supported, supplied and armed the YPG and its umbrella Kurdish partner group, the Forces of Democratic Syria (SDF). This support has long angered Ankara, which accuses Washington and European countries of supporting terrorism and threatening Turkey's national security.
However, the YPG's Western partners insist that they support the Syrian Kurds only to help them cope and defeat ISIS.
But the Americans will bargain with the Turks primarily on the issue of military equipment, and not the rebellious Kurds. As, however, the Europeans.
THEY LISTEN AND DO NOT HESITATE
In this big trade, the Turks are now going all-in. According to Turkish opposition media, the authorities began using intercepted conversations obtained as a result of operational and technical surveillance of Western embassies in Turkey. They are going to use the data obtained in the external, but above all internal agenda.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recommends that Sweden and Finland agree to the demands of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo by Reuters
There is nothing surprising in this. The Turks have already used the data of "wiretapping" during the famous "Khashoggi case" (the murder of an opposition journalist at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul) to pressure Riyadh.
But in this case, something else is important – the Turkish special services have a very serious level of illegal technical penetration into Western and other embassies in the country. This is about the unity of NATO.
The fact that the expansion of the collection of technical intelligence was specifically aimed at Western embassies was publicly confirmed by Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu on May 11. Speaking to a group of supporters in Aydin province, he cited excerpts from the transcript of a closed meeting at one of the Western embassies.
This is a fact in itself unprecedented from the point of view of diplomacy.
Suleiman Soylu did not say how he received information about the content of the negotiations in the embassy behind closed doors. It is likely that the intelligence service hacked the phone of one of the participants of the meeting or has "bugs" and an informant in the embassy. And most likely all together.
So, it became known that the police intelligence, the largest information gathering agency in Turkey, which works under the leadership of the Minister of Internal Affairs, managed to listen to a meeting between foreign diplomats and opposition politicians from the Republican People's Party (CHP).
Although Soylu accused the CHP of meeting with Western diplomats during a discussion of domestic policy, a precedent is important: this was the first time he spoke about the content of the conversation. From this explanation it is clear that the Ministry of Internal Affairs has an informant at the very top of the NRP. Exactly for the reason that technical penetration into embassies is mainly the prerogative of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT).
Although Soylu did not name the country, pro-government media claimed that the meeting took place at the German Embassy in Ankara. Soylu, a far-right politician, an ally of Erdogan, has been publicly criticizing the position of the US and European embassies in Turkey for some time, regularly accusing the US and Europe of supporting anti-government plots.
CONSPIRACIES IMAGINARY AND REAL
It is also clear that the Erdogan government went on the attack as part of an internal political campaign before the 2023 elections. With statements that the opposition is supported by the West, which, according to Erdogan, seeks to overthrow his government, invade Turkey, dismember it and carve out tiny independent states. For example, the Kurdish state on the territory of Turkey.
Experts have no doubt that the intelligence obtained as a result of monitoring and surveillance of Western embassies and diplomats will continue to be used for domestic political consumption and to strengthen the anti-Western narrative of the government.
This is not the first time that the Erdogan government has targeted Western embassies in pursuit of its domestic policy goals. When in December 2013, prosecutors unveiled the largest corruption scandal in the country's history, in which Erdogan and his family members were accused, he immediately declared that there was an international conspiracy against the government. The then US Ambassador to Turkey, Francis Ricciardone, was allegedly behind the plot.
In a campaign coordinated by Erdogan's order, all pro-government media published photos of Ricciardone on the front pages. They claimed that the US ambassador told a group of European ambassadors at a closed meeting that "the world will witness the fall of the empire," apparently referring to then-Prime Minister Erdogan. Then a propaganda team brought in from the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) quickly concocted a story that Ricciardone was involved in a scheme to overthrow the government, which was allegedly revealed at a secret meeting.
On the day when this story appeared in the headlines of five pro-government newspapers, Erdogan spoke about it at a rally in the Black Sea city of Samsun and threatened to declare Ricciardone persona non grata. The attack on the US ambassador then helped Erdogan to press charges of a "Western conspiracy" led by Washington, although there was no evidence to support this.
According to the Turkish opposition, Erdogan also came up with one of the biggest hoaxes in recent history. Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish Islamic scholar, the mastermind of the worldwide network of education and charity, according to Erdogan, created a "parallel structure" to carry out a coup and remove Erdogan from power.
But in this case, we will not agree with Erdogan's Turkish critics. Preacher Gulen certainly created such a network and really wanted to take power. There is also no doubt that Gulen was connected with the CIA.
In October 2021, Erdogan criticized the ambassadors of ten Western countries – the United States, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden, who jointly called for the release of the imprisoned philanthropist in accordance with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. He announced that he had instructed his Foreign Minister to declare them persona non grata and expel them from Turkey. "These ten ambassadors should be declared persona non grata at once. You must take care of this immediately, I told the minister," Erdogan said in his speech.
The Turkish government later reversed its position and said the ambassadors had backed away from their original statement – which was disputed by several Western countries, including the US. Although the expulsion did not take place, the noise around it helped to shift the debate from domestic political issues and distract public attention from the deterioration of the country's economic prospects.
The recent accusations of the Interior Minister against Western ambassadors have similar motives. They will also help the Erdogan government undermine the opposition by portraying it as traitors who cooperate with Turkey's foreign enemies. In addition, this raises Ankara's trump cards in the negotiations on "pay-offs" for the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO.
TRADE RESULTS IN BERLIN
Turkey said Sweden and Finland should provide security guarantees against the PKK. And to lift all arms embargoes imposed on Ankara before it can support their applications for NATO membership.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara is making progress with Finland on this issue, but Sweden continues to behave "provocatively." And that Turkey "will be satisfied" only after receiving security guarantees.
Turkey has also asked both countries to extradite suspected PKK members. Cavusoglu said he shared with the Swedish authorities photos and documents that show that the PKK operates freely in Sweden.
Turkey's justice ministry said on May 15 that Ankara had requested the extradition of six alleged PKK members from Finland and 11 alleged PKK members from Sweden. No response has been received yet. But in the best case, the Kurds will be asked to simply leave the countries of their current stay. The Swedish Government has announced that it will send a delegation to Turkey to discuss this issue.
Turkey also wants all bans on arms exports from Finland and Sweden to be lifted before joining NATO. Both countries imposed an embargo on military-technical cooperation with Turkey after the latter invaded Northern Syria in 2019 to pursue the Syrian branch of the PKK, the People's Self–Defense Forces.
THE BRITISH FACTOR
President Erdogan and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held telephone talks on May 20. "During the talks, regional events were discussed, including relations between Turkey and the UK, the request of Sweden and Finland to join NATO, as well as the war between Ukraine and Russia," the Turkish leader's office said.
Some sources in the British army claim that Boris Johnson tacitly supports Erdogan's position on trade for NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. We are talking about the course of trade, and not about Ankara's principled decision.
The British Prime Minister is solving his problems. He thus pushes into the shadow of Foreign Minister Liz Truss, who was the main initiator of this NATO expansion and pulled the blanket over herself in this matter to the United States, bearing in mind her potential premiership. They say Johnson and Truss had a big fight about it.
Johnson thinks of himself as a "second Churchill" and wants to play a leading and, most importantly, a positive role in this issue. His participation in Erdogan's "persuasion" gives him a trump card in the eyes of Washington. It will be interesting after these negotiations to trace the transformation of Erdogan's line of conduct on this issue. And it will definitely soften, since the classics of eastern bargaining provide for the maximum overestimation of the price at the first stage.
Boris Johnson also wants to lift the embargo on the supply of weapons and military equipment from Turkey in the interests of the British military-industrial complex in exchange for his support. By the way, just before the mentioned telephone conversation, news came that the UK lifted the ban on the export of defense industry products to Turkey. This was announced on May 20 by the head of the Turkish Defense Industry Department Ismail Demir.
Earlier it was reported that in 2019, the UK suspended the issuance of licenses to Turkey for the export of weapons that can be used in operations in Syria against the Kurdish SNC units (which in fact are supporters of the PKK, but are supported by the United States).
This is another indirect evidence of Boris Johnson's involvement in this whole story.
We also recall that the UK government announced in December 2021 that it had lifted the suspension of exports of military equipment to Turkey. But it added that all existing and new applications for export and trade licenses for Turkey will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the "strategic criteria for export licensing." A senior Turkish official said that despite the December statement, there are still export licenses for some items that are awaiting approval by the British government. So in practice, the restrictions continued.
Ankara and London have close defense relations within the framework of partnership with NATO. There is also industrial cooperation. It is expected, for example, that the British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce and its local Turkish partner Kale will supply the engine for Ankara's first national fighter TF-X.
British BAE Systems is also working closely with Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in the development of this fighter, including stealth technology. The project has become extremely important for the Turkish military, since Turkey was excluded from the American fifth-generation F-35 fighter program after the purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems. Now Ankara needs the TF-X project to upgrade its aging Air Force fleet.
The British side also expresses interest in Turkish combat drones, such as the Bayraktar TB2, which have been used against Russian weapons in Syria, Libya, Azerbaijan and recently in Ukraine. Last year, Turkish Industry Minister Mustafa Varank told reporters that Ankara had presented the UK government with a set of options for the supply of armed drones. Several sources have reported that London is interested in renting armed drones, not buying them. This may indicate that the British want to supply Ukraine with them under a rental scheme.
Ankara's recent delivery of the Bayraktar TB2 to Kiev prompted the European and Canadian governments to begin reviewing their restrictions on the supply of military equipment to Turkey, since some components of the drone are supplied by Western manufacturers.
Vasily Ivanov
Vasily Ivanovich Ivanov is a journalist.