Sweden last week extradited a suspected member of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) to Turkey, a move Turkish officials have welcomed, but Ankara wants to see more extraditions before approving Stockholm’s NATO membership.
“This is a good start from Sweden that shows their sincerity and goodwill. We hope new [extraditions] will follow in line with this sincerity,” Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Monday, according to Reuters.
Sweden on Friday extradited Mahmut Tat, a man who sought asylum in Sweden in 2015 after being convicted in Turkey for alleged ties to the PKK, a Kurdish militant group Turkey, the EU, and the US consider a terrorist organization.
Besides expecting more extraditions, Bozdag said Turkey wants Sweden and Finland to take other steps agreed to under a deal signed in June. “In line with the trilateral memorandum with Sweden and Finland, they should lift all embargoes on Turkey, change their legislation for the fight against terrorism, and extradite all terrorists that Turkey wants,” he said.
Sweden and Finland placed an arms embargo on Turkey by imposing export controls in response to Ankara’s 2019 incursion into Syria. Sweden already announced in September that it will resume all arms exports to Turkey.
Turkey’s recent operations against Kurdish groups in northeast Syria could complicate Sweden and Finland’s NATO bids even more. Turkey launched massive airstrikes in the region after blaming PKK affiliates in Syria for a bombing in Istanbul, and Turkish officials have said Western countries are responsible for the violence due to their backing of the Kurds.
So far, 28 out of 30 NATO members have approved Sweden and Finland joining the alliance, only Turkey and Hungary’s parliaments have not yet signed off. Hungary’s parliament is expected to vote on the issue in early 2023.
Interesting. I heard Turkey was leaving NATO.
Turkey has these shweaty meatballs in their hands and knows how much to squeeze.
1/ antiwar should have a piece on the sweden-kurd relationship – w/its large kurd population – and sweden’s relationship w/some kurd organizations turkey calls terrorist – making turkey’s demands something that hits home within sweden.
2/ also i read somewhere maybe nyt that in finland there’s long been a right wing ‘pro-nato’ faction – so russia didn’t just ‘trigger fears,’ but there’s an internal politics perhaps based on ‘european alignment’ (membership a symbolic gesture of solidarity) and eu financial issues.
in big-weapons-maker sweden too, there’s likely a whole pre-existing internal politics of membership based on money to be made from NATO military contracts vs traditional ‘nonaligned country of refuge’ role, not just a sudden ‘what if we’re next!’ fear of russia launching an attack on it – after steamrolling ukraine so it’s military is freed up from there – across finland, estonia, latvia, lithuania…and the west side seas…