For the past year, Turkish President Erdogan has raised the bar against Swedish entry to the alliance.
President Joe Biden met Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson at the White House this week to underscore his support for Swedish entry into NATO.
Biden’s hope was that Sweden would be welcomed into the alliance at next week’s summit in in Vilnius, Lithuania. Unfortunately, barring a last-minute change of heart by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that is not to be.
For the past year, Erdoğanhas raised the bar against Swedish entry to the alliance. When Sweden and Finland announced in May 2022 that they intended to join NATO, Erdoğan made it clear that he opposed both counties’ applications. He demanded that they hand over Kurds living in both nations that he considered to be supporters of the outlawed PKK organization.
Finland ultimately satisfied his demands without compromising its own principles regarding justice for its citizens. Thus, Erdoğan lifted his opposition, as did Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had announced that his country would not be the last to block the entry of the two Scandinavian countries.
Sweden, however, was another matter. It was not just that Sweden harbored Kurds seeking asylum whom Erdoğan considered to be members of the PKK. He argued that the burning of a Quran at a January 2023 demonstration outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm — an act that was not illegal under Swedish law — was an insult to the Muslim world in general and to his country in particular.
That response played well to the conservative religious Turks who constitute his political base. The fact that the burning of a Quran was instigated by a far-right politician with reported ties to Russia, which could only benefit from Ankara’s veto to further NATO expansion, didn’t seem to matter to the Turkish president.
Erdoğan was also angered by Washington’s July 2019 decision to drop Turkey from the consortium producing the F-35 strike fighter, and its initial reluctance to approve the sale of F-16B fighters to his country. He was not mollified even when Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed in February 2023 that the administration now supported the sale.
Although it appeared that Erdoğan had held out against Swedish entry to NATO until he was promised the F-16Bs, he continued to oppose Swedish entry. Indeed, Congress, notably Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), continued to oppose the sale, even after his House counterpart, Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), announced his support.
As far as Erdoğan was concerned, as long as a branch of the U.S. government opposed the sale, the administration’s promises meant very little.
Many observers believed that Erdoğan’s opposition to Swedish entry was playing to the prejudices of his nationalist, anti-Kurdish constituency, whose votes he needed to win re-election in May. It was believed that he would relent on Swedish entry if he were re-elected, even if Menendez remained hostile to the F-16B sale.
Yet Erdoğan, who won the election by a larger majority than expected, has refused to give way on Swedish entry. Indeed, even as Biden was meeting with Kristersson, Erdoğan again announced that he still opposes Swedish membership of NATO. This time, he was incensed that Sweden had not taken action against those who had participated in yet another burning of a Quran the previous week, calling it a hate crime against Muslims. And he argued that Sweden still had not gone far enough to repress PKK activity within its borders.
Hungary’s Orban has continued to follow Erdoğan’s lead. Indeed, he has asserted that Budapest resents Swedish criticism of its illiberal democracy. No doubt, if Erdoğan were to change his stance, Orban would likely do so as well. But Erdoğan is showing no indication of a change of heart.
It is possible that, as he has in the past, Erdoğan is holding out until the last possible minute in order to wring concessions from Washington, Sweden and NATO. Perhaps, hours before the summit commences, he will lift his objections to Swedish entry. But this is unlikely. Even well-informed Swedes have all but given up on their country joining the alliance next week. They do hold out hope that Sweden will join NATO in the next several months.
Given the administration’s reported increase in pressure on Menendez, should he drop his objections to the F-16B sale, Erdoğan will be sorely tempted to respond in kind and cease to block Swedish entry. And since Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, has blocked a $735 million sale of HIMARS rocket launcher batteries and associated support to Hungary until it relents on Swedish entry, there can be little doubt that Hungary will quickly follow suit.
Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.
