By Ahmed Adel | July 11, 2023
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the European Union
on July 9 to open the doors for his country to join the bloc if
they want to secure support for Swedens accession to NATO. His
blackmailing of the EU, which ultimately produced results, comes
only days after he controversially broke an agreement with Moscow
by releasing neo-Nazi Azov Battalion members under Turkeys custody
to Ukraine.
Turkey has been waiting at the door of the European Union for
over 50 years now, and almost all of the NATO member countries are
now members of the European Union. I am making this call to these
countries that have kept Turkey waiting at the gates of the
European Union for more than 50 years, Erdogan said. First, open
the way to Turkeys membership of the European Union, and then we
will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland.
Turkey has been an EU member candidate since 1999. Since 2016,
negotiations on a visa-free regime between Turkey and the EU have
been on hold. The countrys bid for EU membership has been stalled
due to democratic backsliding and an unrelenting occupation of the
northern portion of EU-member Cyprus since 1974.
Ultimately, Erdogan backflipped just mere hours after issuing
his blackmail.
Im glad to announce that President Erdogan has agreed to forward
the accession protocol for Sweden to the grand national assembly as
soon as possible, and work closely with the assembly to ensure
ratification, said NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on the
eve of the alliance summit in Vilnius, which will be held on July
11-12.
Finland and Sweden applied to join the bloc in May 2022. Finland
gained its membership on April 4, 2023, while the Swedes await
approval from Hungary and Turkey. As Turkey will never surrender
its occupation of northern Cyprus, its EU membership will be
forever stalled, making Erdogans ultimatum either a desperate
action or a calculated manoeuvre to advance other interests.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrm told public broadcaster
SVT that he expects Turkey will eventually signal that it will let
Sweden join the alliance, though he could not say whether that
would happen at the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital. Swedens
top diplomat said he expects Hungary, which also has not ratified
Swedens accession, to do so before Turkey.
Turkey and Hungary remain the only NATO members still standing
in the way of Sweden becoming the 32nd member of the US-led bloc,
with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban strongly signalling he
will follow Erdogans lead and approve Swedens membership only if
Turkey does the same.
Now that Erdogan has reportedly unblocked Swedens path, the
question is what was offered to appease the Turkish leader.
Presumably, Erdogan would have only unblocked the accession process
with the promise of rec......
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