Finland’s foreign minister said Saturday that last week’s bombing in Istanbul, which Ankara has blamed on the Kurdish militant group PKK, could hinder talks with Turkey on joining NATO
Turkey has held up Finland and Sweden’s NATO bid over their alleged support for the PKK and other Kurdish groups. Ankara is seeking the extradition of suspected PKK members, mostly from Sweden, and has said the Nordic nations have yet to fulfill a deal they signed with Turkey to join NATO.
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said the Istanbul bombing, which killed six people, will make Turkey want to raise the issue of terrorism even more. “It’s a momentum that Turkey is using and of course they have all the rights to raise this issue during the NATO process,” he said, according to Bloomberg.
In response to the Istanbul bombing, Turkey launched major airstrikes in northern Syria and Iraq. Turkish officials have blamed the violence on the US and other Western countries for supporting Kurdish groups in northeast Syria.
“Our Western allies must think long and hard about their support. They are directly and indirectly trying to destabilize our country. Their support results in loss of innocent Turkish lives,” Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s communications director, wrote on Twitter Monday. His comments came in response to rocket fire that hit a Turkish district near the Syrian border in response to the Turkish airstrikes.
Sweden has a larger Kurdish population than Finland, which Haavisto acknowledged, and appears to have more issues with Turkey when it comes to reaching a deal on NATO. But the two Nordic nations have linked their NATO memberships and intend to follow through on the process together, and it’s unlikely Turkey would approve one and not the other.
Finland and Sweden will join NATO it is just a matter of time.
NATO will be disbanded it’s just a matter of time, so Finland and Sweden needn’t be part of NATOs aggressive expansion right to Russia’s borders.
NATO has been in existence for 73 years. I will bet on them being around for a lot more time.
The only fella conducting an aggressive expansion of its own territory is Putin. It’s why he hates NATO. NATO has prevented Russia’s expansionism goals.
NATO’s expansion is what has caused Russia’s efforts to weaken NATO’s threat to them.
Too complicated for those who adhere to the official narrative. Bumper stickers make for good similes, metaphors, and even analogies, and Americans (and now, surprisingly, Europeans) love bumper stickers.
Too complicated for those who adhere to the official narrative. Bumper stickers make for good similes, metaphors, and even analogies, and Americans (and now, surprisingly, Europeans) love bumper stickers.
NATO caused Russia’s expansionism. But NATO’s wrong does not justify Putin’s preemptive war against Ukraine. A just cause does not justify a war because wars are almost always worse than the casus belli.
Ever the story teller 😉
Turkey tried for decades to join EU. While not a fan of Turkey, they now hold all the card to delay and make all the excuses to allow those two to join NATO.
Actually they don’t hold are the cards. Take a look at Turkey’s military equipment. It is extremely based on US equipment and/or US technology.
Like their anti-air defenses, for example.
I suppose Erdogan is holding not all, but certainly a few important cards now that allows him to sweeten a trade-off between NATO expansion and Turkey’s full EU membership. If Washington decides they want it to happen, then of course it will. And it will be interesting to see the clusterfuck unfold when that happens. Probably better to watch that spectacle from a safe distance. It will at the very least considerably accelerate the process of political erosion that will ultimately dissolve this a-democratic political monstrosity.
Looks like being a NATO member has its downsides. You never know when your neighbors may decide to drop
insomething on you!Zed please don’t do anything stupid you dumb but cute person 🙂
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“Johnny Turk he was ready, he trained himself well, he chased us with bullets and he rained us with shell, we were butchered like lambs at the slaughter and in five minutes flat, he’d blown us all to hell… “And I’ll go no more Waltzing Matilda”…-June Tabor
Turkey is playing hard ball. It is forcing Sweden and Finland to be craven, something Sweden should have no trouble with but which is more difficult for Finns.