Liu Zhongmin: Opposing Finland and Sweden joining NATO, is Erdogan's harsh words serious?
Author: Liu Zhongmin, Professor, Institute of Middle East Studies, Shanghai
Source: The Paper; Shanghai Foreign Middle East Research Institute
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
Image source: Other
Recently, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a harsh remark on the joining of Sweden and Finland to NATO: "As long as Tayyyip Erdogan is the head of state of the Republic of Turkey, we certainly cannot say 'yes' to the entry of countries that support terrorism into NATO." ”
Turkey opposes the accession of Sweden and Finland for reasons including their support for the PKK (classified by Turkey, the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization) and its branches, as well as support for the "Gülen Movement" (the religious figure Fethhula Gulen has been identified as linked to Turkey's 2016 attempted military coup).
On 18 May, the ambassadors of Finland and Sweden to NATO submitted an application to NATO's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, marking the official application of Finland and Sweden to join NATO. At that time, Erdogan had said that unless the Turkish demands were met, he would firmly oppose the accession of Finland and Sweden.
According to the Turkish sabah magazine, Turkey has made 10 demands on Finland and Sweden: (1) clarify the position of the PKK and its related organizations as terrorist organizations; (2) official contacts with the PKK and its affiliated organizations must be stopped; (3) stop providing financial support to the Syrian "terrorist organization" Syrian People's Protection Force (YPG), (4) avoid contact with PKK leaders in Iraq and Syria; and (5) stop what is being wanted" The Gulen Movement "false propaganda and lobbying by fugitives and others in Finland and Sweden; (6) accelerated the extradition of wanted members of the PKK, YPG and kurdish community alliances (KCK) to Turkey; (7) correctly seek national security guarantees, and all activities endangering Turkish national security must be stopped; (8) jointly establish mechanisms with Turkey to combat terrorist organizations; (9) cut off bank accounts and financial flows raised by terrorist organizations; (10) prevent so-called "non-governmental organizations" opposed to Turkey. event or fundraising.
Turkey's demands mainly focused on the differences between Turkey and Finland, Sweden (in fact, the entire United States and Europe) on the Kurdish issue and the "Gulen Movement". In addition, according to other reports, Turkey has also linked the issue of Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO with more strategic issues between Turkey and the United States and Europe, such as Turkey's request that the United States and Europe lift the arms embargo on Turkey; and the re-integration of Turkey into the F-35 advanced aircraft program. Turkey has also asked for the purchase of dozens of U.S. F-16 fighter jets and the purchase of upgrade kits for its existing fighters.
Turkey's response to Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO has even surpassed that of Russia. Of course, there are differences between each other on the Kurdish issue and the Gulen movement, but the deeper reason lies in the strategic differences between Turkey and the United States and Europe, and it is also the embodiment of the intensification of deep-seated contradictions between Turkey and the West in the context of major changes in Turkey's internal affairs and diplomacy in recent years. Emphasizing and highlighting unique identities and interests, but also not being able to be outside the Western system, and always highlighting its own sense of existence and discourse power according to changes in the international system and regional situation and hot issues, is the root cause of Turkey's behavior in the entire Russian-Ukrainian conflict and related issues.
Turkey's tortuous "marriage" with NATO
NATO was founded in 1949 and its 12 founding members are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Luxembourg. By the end of the Cold War in 1991, NATO had 16 members, and the four new countries were Germany, Greece, Spain, and Turkey. Among these countries, Turkey, which joined NATO in 1952, is obviously very special, and Turkey has become the only non-Western Islamic country among NATO countries.
As we all know, NATO, as a security organization established by countries on both sides of the North Atlantic, has founding members mainly from North America and Western European countries. After the beginning of the Cold War, the United States proposed the Truman Doctrine of aiding Turkey and Greece to prevent the Turkish and Greek revolutions and throw themselves into the embrace of the socialist camp. However, in the process of NATO's preparations, although Turkey has always asked the United States to provide security protection for the United States on the grounds that the Soviet Union threatens the Black Sea Strait, and has repeatedly put forward security demands to the United States to join NATO, the United States has been extremely cautious in intervening in Middle East security affairs, especially on the issue of Turkey and Iran, and has said that it will guarantee Turkey's security in other forms such as bilateral statements and other security treaties. There are also sharp disagreements within the U.S. departments of foreign affairs and security over whether to include Turkey into NATO.
Therefore, although Turkey's demands to join the Western camp, especially the military alliance system, were extremely fierce, the United States ultimately did not agree to Turkey's request to join NATO as a founding power. After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Turkey participated in the Korean War with unusually active participation in the "United Nations Army" formed by the United States, and on the other hand, it once again strongly proposed to join NATO. With the expansion of the Cold War, the United States also recognized Turkey's important position in the soviet union's southern flank to resist Soviet expansion, and Turkey's importance to the overall security of the Mediterranean, and the United States decided to absorb Turkey into NATO. In 1952, Turkey joined NATO and became the forward position of the West against the Soviet Union, and the United States established a number of military bases in Turkey. Turkey has since become an important "strategic fulcrum" for the United States in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus.
Turkey's embarrassing situation in NATO was highlighted during the Cold War, and the core contradiction is that the United States not only wants Turkey to play a barrier role in the process of countering the Soviet Union, but also suppresses Turkey's demand to achieve its own interests. For example, in 1961, during the Kennedy administration's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States demanded that Turkey remove the Jupiter ballistic missile (PGM-19 Jupiter) planted on its territory in exchange for the Soviet Union abandoning its plan to deploy missiles in Cuba, but this was a private transaction between the United States and the Soviet Union that abandoned Turkey in advance, which humiliated Turkey and generated a sense of distrust of the United States. Another example is that after the outbreak of the Cyprus crisis in 1963, us president Johnson, fearing Turkish military intervention, sent a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Inonu in June 1964, demanding that Turkey must abandon military intervention in Cyprus, otherwise the United States would stop its military support for Turkey. This is the famous "Johnson Letter", which deeply humiliated Turkey.
After the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a decline in Turkey's strategic value to the United States, but the strategic partnership between the two sides has not changed. In the early days of the end of the Cold War, Turkey still put its ally with the United States a diplomatic priority and actively supported and participated in the strategic actions of the United States in the Middle East. During the 1991 Gulf War, Turkey fully supported U.S. action. After the 9/11 incident, Turkey also cooperated with the United States in the "war on terror" in the 2001 Afghan war, and played an important role in the Afghan war as a NATO member.
Since Erdogan's Justice and Development Party came to power in 2002, especially in the decade of the "Arab Spring" in 2011, with the tremendous changes in Turkey's domestic and foreign affairs, as well as the changes in NATO itself, Turkey and the West have had deep differences around Turkey's domestic political development, major international and regional issues, especially hot issues in the Middle East, Turkey's relations with Russia, and have had a profound impact on Turkey's relations with NATO.
Behind the opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO: Turkey's deep differences with the West
At present, Turkey's statement on the issue of Finland and Sweden joining NATO is not a stubborn opposition to their joining NATO, but behind it is a reflection of the deep contradictions and differences between Turkey and the West, or Turkey is trying to achieve its own interests through Finland and Sweden joining NATO. At the same time, turkey, especially Erdogan, is a catharsis of strong dissatisfaction with the United States and Europe, because Turkey has been squeezed by the West in the past two decades on the issue of joining the European Union and domestic politics. This is also exactly what Al Jazeera said: "Turkey's reservations about NATO expansion reflect Ankara's disillusionment with most of its Western allies on a broader level." ”
First, the strengthening of Turkish authoritarian politics has led to deepening differences between Western countries and Turkey in the field of values.
For nearly 20 years, especially after the attempted coup d'état in Turkey in 2016, Turkey has strengthened its authoritarian rule with the president as its core by implementing a presidential system and weakening the power of the military. In the eyes of the United States and Europe, Turkey has deviated from the values of democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law advocated by the West, and is no longer a "beacon of democracy" in the Middle East and the Islamic world, which is the ideological and value root of the intensification of contradictions between the United States and Turkey. At present, turkey and the United States around the leaders of the "Gulen Movement" (Turkey's request for extradition to settle in the United States has been repeatedly rejected by the United States), the United States and the West have repeatedly demanded that Turkey release its imprisoned political prisoners, and even the differences between the United States and Europe and Turkey over the Kurdish issue are all manifestations of the contradictions between Turkey and Western ideologies and values.
Second, the differences between Turkey and the West over the Kurdish issue have become the reason for the differences between the two sides on the issue of counter-terrorism, and have also expanded to the differences between the two sides on hot issues in the Middle East. This is also the most direct grip on Turkey's opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
In Turkey's relations with the West, the Kurdish issue is both a political and a security issue. Political issues refer to the constant criticism of Turkey's Kurdish policy in the West, especially in Europe, especially Turkey's policy of reconciliation with the Kurds has stagnated after being frustrated, causing dissatisfaction among European countries and becoming an important factor restricting Turkey's accession to the European Union. Security issues refer to the PKK's security threat to Turkey and the impact of the growing Kurdish forces around the Iraq war, the Syrian crisis and the fight against the extremist group Islamic State on Turkey's Kurdish issue.
On the Kurdish issue, Turkey is worried that the support of the United States for Kurdish forces in Iraq and Syria will adversely affect Turkey's Kurdish issue, which has forced Turkey to cross the border into Iraq and Syria many times to fight against Kurdish forces. In addition, Turkey believes that European countries are not effective in cracking down on PKK members in exile in Europe, let alone cooperating with Turkey in screening and extraditing.
In short, the complexity of the Kurdish issue lies in Turkey's rigid counter-terrorism policy against the PKK, as well as the Kurdish armed forces in neighboring countries Syria and Iraq that are linked to the PKK, and hope that the United States and Europe will support and cooperate. However, in the Western view, the PKK issue is not simply a terrorist issue, but is closely related to turkey's Kurdish policy, which in turn triggers complex contradictions and differences between the two sides. In response to Turkey's seizure of the PKK issue and blamed Finland and Europe, which have applied to join NATO, some analysts pointed out that the Kurdish issue "has always been the main reason for the tension in Turkey's relations with the West in the past few years."
Third, Turkey's ongoing cooperation with Russia in the political and security fields poses a serious challenge to NATO's security integration.
As Turkey's contradictions with the United States and Europe continue to intensify, Turkey has also boldly achieved the dual purpose of safeguarding its own interests and leveraging the West through political and security cooperation with Russia. At the same time, Turkey is also using its geopolitical advantages to flexibly move between the West and Russia, and Turkey's current role in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has brought this political logic to the extreme.
What annoys the United States and NATO the most is Turkey's purchase and deployment of the Russian S-400 air defense missile system in defiance of stern U.S. warnings. When Turkey signaled an attempt to buy a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile system in 2017, the United States warned of suspending Turkey's right to participate in the new-generation F-35 fighter program and threatened sanctions. Turkey has threatened to close military bases such as the İncirlik air base. In October 2020, Turkey tested the S-400 anti-aircraft missile system off the Coast of the Black Sea and successfully tracked down american F-16 fighter jets; on December 14, the U.S. government announced sanctions against Turkey for its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense missile system. This is the first time the United States has applied the provisions of the Countering U.S. Enemies with Sanctions Act (CAATSA) to NATO allies.
Pressure from the U.S. and NATO on Turkey over the S-400 has provoked a backlash from Turkish nationalism. Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said: "We can buy weapons from anyone we want and we never have to prove it to NATO." In the recent statement of opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Erdogan's demands that the United States and Europe lift the arms embargo on Turkey and reintegrate Turkey into the F-35 advanced aircraft program are undoubtedly still a continuation of the game between Turkey and the United States around the S-400.
Facts have shown that Turkey's contradictions with NATO have caused Turkey's trust in NATO to continue to decline. Polls conducted by the German Marshall Fund from 2004 to 2014 showed that NATO's approval rating in Turkey was among the coalition countries surveyed.
In recent years, turkey has been in constant conflict with NATO and its European member states, and has even directly affected NATO's security cooperation. For example, at NATO's 2016 Warsaw summit, a few days before Turkey's unsuccessful military coup on July 15, 2016, NATO agreed to hold a NATO summit in Istanbul in 2018. But after Turkey's attempted coup, more than a dozen NATO members, including Germany and Canada, opposed a summit in Turkey. In this context, the 2018 NATO summit was held in Brussels. The move caused strong resentment in Turkey.
For example, in 2017, a NATO Norwegian contractor attacked Kemal, the founding father of Turkey, and current leader Erdogan as "hostile leaders" on the website, and in order to avoid the impact of the incident on the upcoming military exercises, NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg and Norwegian Defense Minister had to formally apologize to Turkey. Nevertheless, it has caused strong opposition from Turkish society to NATO, and even strong calls for Turkey to withdraw from NATO have appeared on social media.
Another example is that on June 2, 2016, the German Bundestag declared the mass murder of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as genocide. Three weeks later, Turkey retaliated by denying German lawmakers access to NATO Air Base in Engilik, Turkey, which houses 260 German soldiers. In addition, Turkey has rejected Germany's plan to expand its military deployment at the English gillic base. It was not until October 2016, after the German government publicly declared that the vote in the Bundestag (referring to the vote on the Armenian question) was not binding, that German lawmakers were allowed to visit the base. In May 2017, Turkey again barred German lawmakers from visiting the British Air Base in Killik, leading to a renewed escalation of tensions between the two sides. Affected by this, Germany had to turn to the decision to deploy soldiers and aircraft to the Jordanian air base.
Turkey will not ultimately prevent Finland and Sweden from joining NATO
Although Turkey has strongly worded its opposition to Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO, it mainly takes this opportunity to express its dissatisfaction with the West, especially the United States, in order to realize or partially realize Turkey's demands in terms of practical interests, and should not ultimately prevent Finland and Sweden from joining NATO.
In recent years, Turkey has often acted willfully toward the West, but it has never reached the point of endangering Turkey's relations with the West. While Turkey expressed its opposition to Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO, Turkish officials explained that this position is not aimed at closing the door of the two countries to join NATO, but is aimed at forcing the two countries to respond to Turkey's request to restrict the activities of "terrorist organizations" and take a clear position on the issue of combating "terrorism", as well as lifting the military sanctions imposed by the two countries on Turkey in 2019.
Judging from the past situation of Turkey and the West, both sides will not break through the bottom line and will eventually compromise to avoid a complete breakdown in bilateral relations. For example, in October 2021, the ambassadors of the United States, France, Germany and other ten Western countries to Turkey issued a joint statement urging Turkey to release the imprisoned political dissident , Turkish businessman Kavala , while Erdogan declared the ambassador of the ten Western countries "undesirable", implying a warning of his deportation. However, the storm was quickly calmed by compromise between the two sides.
From the perspective of the West, at present, under the circumstance that the United States continues to increase its strategic game with Russia, the West will not lose big because of small things, which will weaken the ability of Europe and the United States to resist Russia on the Ukraine issue. It's also just as the Al Jazeera review put it: "In the current circumstances, the West does not have enough time to continue this game of angering Turkey, which has been one of the main factors shaping Turkey's new foreign policy over the past five years." Given the new challenges that the war in Ukraine poses to European security and global stability, the establishment of a united and strong NATO has become more urgent than ever. ”
At a deeper level, Turkey still has an irreplaceable strategic position for NATO and the West. Turkey's strategic location in Connecting Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia is hard to replace by any other country; Turkey has NATO's second largest military force, which NATO must rely on. Turkey's military bases play a prominent role in the U.S. and NATO military security systems. Turkey's English and Konya air bases are home to troops from other NATO countries, NATO Allied Land Command in Izmir, and U.S. radar early warning devices deployed in Kujik as part of the European Missile Defense Operational System.
Turkey has also been playing an important role in NATO's operations. Since 1995, Turkey has participated in all NATO operations in the Balkans and has made an important contribution to NATO's mission in Kosovo. Turkey has also been a major contributor to NATO's missionary force in Afghanistan. It has also been responsible for the long-term management of Kabul International Airport and has made a significant contribution to the training of the Afghan National Police. Senior Turkish officials have twice served as NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan. After NATO's combat mission ended in 2014, Turkey was the only NATO member that did not reduce the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan. Instead, it expanded its military presence and provided training, advice, and assistance to Afghan security forces until the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
Turkey and Russia are also a cooperative and struggling relationship, and Turkey still needs the United States and NATO to guarantee its security and balance Russian pressure. Although Turkey and Russia have close cooperation on economic and trade, energy, security and regional hotspot issues, there are complex struggles and games in regional affairs such as the Middle East, Central Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. For example, in recent years, there has been economic and security cooperation between Turkey and Russia on the black sea side, but in the event of contradictions and conflicts, Turkey will turn to its NATO membership and force the United States and NATO to exert pressure on Russia.
In short, the contradictions on the issue of Finland and Sweden joining NATO are a reflection and continuation of the long-term contradictions between Turkey and NATO and Turkey and the West. This is also exactly as the commentary put it: "It is not difficult for Finland and Sweden to commit to Turkey to restrict the activities of organizations that pose a threat to Ankara, but from a broader perspective, linking this issue to relations between Turkey and the West would make Turkey's opposition to NATO expansion an issue that would not only hinder the two countries from joining NATO, but could also lead to further instability in relations between Ankara and its Western partners... If the West does not respond to Turkey's security needs, Turkey's enthusiasm for reshaping its partnership with the West will also weaken. ”
Although the relationship between Turkey and the West will maintain an overall pattern of cooperation and struggle for a certain period of time, in terms of evolutionary trends, the differences and rifts between Turkey and the West in the areas of identity, values, politics and security relations will continue to intensify and reshape Turkey's relations with the West.
Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has completed five rounds of eastward expansion. However, with the eastward expansion of NATO and the changes in the global and Eurasian regional situation, especially the decline in NATO cohesion, the rise of nationalism and populism in various member states, and the serious lack of leadership ability of the United States, NATO's eastward expansion has more and more deviated from NATO's own security positioning, falling into the paradox of more and more insecurity as it expands, and the "Turkey phenomenon" within NATO will emerge endlessly and eventually lead NATO to the end. This is perhaps also the biggest warning to the world of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this official account
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