But turks said no.
No. If the Turks actually said "no," they wouldn't be making demands:
https://www.dw.com/en/nato-turkey-outlines-demands-on-finlan...:
> Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Sunday outlined demands for Finland and Sweden which seek membership in NATO in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
> Speaking with Turkish reporters after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin, he said that Sweden and Finland must stop supporting terrorists in their countries, provide clear security guarantees and lift export bans on Turkey.
I guess both Swedish and Finnish government would both need to swallow a few frogs to comply with these requirements.
At least, they won't be able to maintain a moral high horse over Turkey any more after complying.
Because Russia is still the scarier enemy. If the rest of NATO approves, what is Turkey going to do? Leave NATO and accept eventual invasion?
Turkey has NATO's second-largest army, for one thing.
Which is BTW similar to what's happening to EU: they realized that some states have too much power in the admission process, so they want to "speed up" the process. Probably they will go for a "3/4" of the members have to say YES. That kind of stuff. Same old, same old.
This makes it sound like Sweden does something that other NATO members don't. That's not the case. Sweden supports the SDC in syria, which supports the YPG, which is connected to the PKK. And this is controversial in several of the countries that do this, including the US.
While it's true that it's Sweden applying for membership and not anyone else, the logical thing for Turkey to do here is to try to pressure the whole alliance to adopt some policy change (such as a terror clasification for YPG, and/or no more aid to SDC and connected groups).
Because the accession process provides Turkey an opportunity to apply leverage against Sweden and Finland to change their behavior. Simply refusing to allow it would gain Turkey nothing and harm them indirectly by weakening (or failing to strengthen) an alliance that Turkey depends on for its own security.
...because neither country is supporting Erdoğan's enemies? The dictator is just posturing for his own people, he'll never actually dare to vote against every other country in NATO.
This appears to just be about Sweden and Finland’s support for the Kurds, some of who are in Iraq and some in Turkey. Turkey doesn’t want them forming a new and potentially hostile nation on its border, and doesn’t want any support for that from within NATO.
Unfortunately for the Kurds they’re probably about to get thrown under the bus, since Finland and Sweden are now more concerned about the much larger, aggressive, unstable, nuclear-armed rogue state on their own border.
So, Turkey and Russia might not exactly be friends. Erdogan and Putin is another topic.
Also, be wary of what Erdogan and his people say. He's about as trustworthy as Putin, and when he calls those organizations "Terrorists" or that Sweden and Finland support them, then that's actually quite far from the truth and he wants something much less palatable.
I very much doubt that these announcements are the _start_ of negotiations.
More likely, the public phase makes the beginning of the end of negotiations for Sweden (and Finland) to join NATO. It would be a co-ordinated, done deal or close to it, before they break cover and announce it to the world, and to Russia specifically.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-meet-turkey-critic...
"The problem is that these two countries are openly supporting and engaging with PKK and YPG. These are terrorist organisations that have been attacking our troops every day," Mevlut Cavusoglu said as he arrived in Berlin for a meeting with his NATO counterparts.
"Therefore it is unacceptable and outrageous that our friends and allies are supporting this terrorist organisation," he said. "These are the issues that we need to talk about with our NATO allies as well as these countries" Sweden and Finland, he added.
The reality is a lot more complicated, but Erdogan would very much like you to simplify "organized Kurds = Terrorists"...
On the other hand, if the PKK is able to fundraise in Sweden and Finland like the IRA used to be able to in the US, then it seems logical for Turkey to use whatever leverage they have to decrease that activity, similar to GB.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/03/22/i...
As a total outsider I see the situation as somewhat related to the Palestinian struggle: The more you are struggling for basic survival in the face of aggression, oppression and poverty, the less energy and motivation there is to curb the excesses of extremists in the own ranks.
You probably it is not the same, but for many, many people it is.
Also, your example missed the point where the Good friday agreement was drafted with US backing and help. This actually did more for the peace than decreasing fundraisers. Maybe Turkey should learn from this example?
I’m ask out of moderate ignorance in that I read the claims of Turkey and that of Sweden and Finland without a mechanism for deducing truth beyond various actors’ assertions.
While it would be optimal if Turkey did wage “Good Friday” peace to the extent that it is possible, it doesn’t seem likely since their position in the triad is that of GB, not the US. The non-NATO Nordics are more similar to the role of the US.
I don't have a solution either. I'll let professional negotiators find one :)
Also the Kurds are forming a state in parts of Syria and Iraq, where the "original" state is not able to restore order, especially against islamic militants. On top of that, the Turkish security forces have a long history of prosecuting Kurdish civilians. This makes the whole label of "terrorism" extremely murky and what Erdogan wants of NATO is much less nice than support against terrorists: He wants support and acquiescence in his war against Kurdish forces, including outside Turkey.
Not really. It does if one does this after they’re invaded, to evade mutual defence commitments. But acknowledging that there are no longer shared values and providing an off ramp is perfectly fine. Strengthening, even, as it shows heightened resolve to take the commitment seriously.
Most treaties have termination clauses. The North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 13 provides for voluntary exit [1]. (One could argue Ankara’s SS-4 purchase constitutes an Article 8 violation, though this would be petry.)
Treaties are about mutual understanding. If Americans and Czechs would find it unseemly to fight for Turkey’s defence in case of invasion, it does more harm to pretend they’re under collective defence than to amend the treaty to make it extremely clear whom one can invade without getting nuked and whom one cannot.
All this said, I think Turkey should remain a NATO member. They have shown themselves by arming Ukraine and denouncing Putin. They are a founding member. And their position remains strategically critical.
[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.ht...
Okay?
> no idea what an "SS-4" is
Sorry, pre coffee. S-400.
This has been covered in the American refusal to sell Ankara F-35s and ensuing sanctioning of it under CAATSA [1].
In short, no detection system is perfect. And no modern military system is sold without servicing. Letting Russia service an air defence system with the privilege of painting NATO jets, arms and missile defences is a breach of trust. It could be considered, again, pettily, though good luck to those who claims the law is often anything but, “an international engagement in conflict with” Turkey’s NATO obligations.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mepo.12628
Ejection is a serious thing. Even its deliberation will have the effect you describe.
But anyone pretending NATO is immortal or immutable or above political alignment is naïve. If a member behaves radically differently from the others, will it be politically feasible to send one’s soldiers to their aid in a time of need? If the answer to that question isn’t predictably an unambiguous yes, the treaty should be modified. Leaving Russia to guess whether Estonia is a Britain member or a Hungary member undermines the alliance's deterrence.
These treaties were forged by our parents and grandparents. They’re stronger as living documents than relics.
Another option is if a member state were to commit genocide. In that case the alliance might dissolve and the other members might instead band together and attack that member. Hypothetically speaking.
Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden, they are actively involved in being a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East, and they have an advanced military manufacturing capability that they have used to supply Ukraine and others with military drones.
They also have substantial more recent conflict experience and partnerships with affiliates throughout MENA.
Even if NATO was about Russia, Turkey is a much more important buffer to Russian ambitions than Sweden is.
I'm not a particular fan of Turkey, but the only reason we would rather have Sweden over Turkey is due to "soft" cultural, christian, western centrism (calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain).
Numbers speak by themselves: 2000 troops in the South, 40000 troops in the occupied North.
Another point of context to you: Russia's narrative for the invasion of Ukraine is copied word by word from the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Super disingenuous considering that Greece was the initial country to invade and that multiple UN-brokered solutions to the problem have been supported by the Turkish side only to have been voted down by Greek cypriots. [0]
Apparently, the Turks included the recognition of the occupied (by them) North Cyprus as one of the terms for agreeing to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
> calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain
In this case it's because it's just wrong. Sweden is by and large a peaceful, democratic, liberal democracy that has free markets and cooperates with NATO member states on a variety of areas. In other words, the interests and values are very closely aligned. The reason we would have Turkey "out" here is because of a misalignment of values - i.e. Turkey is (or would in this case) diverge from the shared interests of the majority of NATO members. I mean, to point this out from the start there's absolutely no reason for Turkey to object over Sweden joining NATO in the first place. The very act of that objection is a divergence from the rest of the group's shared values.
But this is also mostly a nothing-burger because Turkey's public messaging is different from its private messaging. Erdogan will get an internationally inconsequential bone for domestic audiences and will happily vote Sweden (and Finland) in to NATO.
NATO wouldn't do this without having all the members already in agreement with expansion. That's how things work at this level.
This is disingenuous. The YPG question is not "no reason" for Turkey. (I disagree about the reason, but it is still an actual concern for the Turkish government).
> if they don't really cooperate with you.
Turkey absolutely cooperated extensively with the US & NATO. Militarily, much more so than Sweden does.
I don't view that as a valid reason to object to Sweden joining NATO. Maybe Turkey does, and maybe they won't be in NATO over it by the end of the year? There's 0 chance that Sweden and Finland don't join NATO, regardless of what Turkey publically claims.
> Turkey absolutely cooperated extensively with the US & NATO. Militarily, much more so than Sweden does.
Sure, and that cooperation is expected to continue. Ongoing partnerships have to like, keep going on right? Voting "no" to block Sweden and/or Finland from joining NATO would stop the ongoing partnership and end many elements of cooperation. Frankly, while Turkey is helpful militarily and strategically, the US can do anything in the world it needs to do with or without Turkey. But the one thing the US (and NATO) can't afford is serious dissension in the ranks, and that won't be tolerated regardless of the cost.
It's similar to me with the Taiwan thing. For some crazy reason people think that the US wouldn't go to war with China to defend Taiwan. For a while, people such as myself even were concerned about the Baltic states - then the US and UK moved thousands of troops there. These alliances and commitments are a big deal, especially when genuine strategic interests are at stake amongst nation states.
Well if it prevents them from cooperating with someone else it might still be worth it.
Not only, but for the most part....It's about Russia.
> Turkey brings a military ~30x the size of Sweden
On the other hand Sweden and Finland at 2% GDP has a similar defense budget to Turkey. Money does not a military make, but "30x the size" is only counting manpower and not much else. Modern fighter aircraft is around a factor 2x rather than 30x, for example.
> a buffer for conflicts in the Middle East > advanced military manufacturing capability > partnerships with affiliates throughout MENA
These are all very important.
> "soft" cultural, christian, western centrism (calling things racism is taboo on HN so I will refrain).
It's perhaps easier to look at democracy and press-freedom indices then, to see why Turkey isn't like the others. Perhaps that's what you meant? The problem is that undemocratic/authoritarian states tend to be stable, until they suddenly aren't. NATO is supposed to be a partnership of democracies (It's a prerequisite for applying!) so it's safe to say that being not-a-democracy isn't popular once in the alliance either.
So sure, NATO is a defense mechanism for what some would call western (that is: secular, liberal, ...) democracy. That indeed does touch on culture and religion, but only superficially. Turkey has long been the champion of secularism in the area, and obviosuly everyone in NATO (and elsewhere) hopes that will remain the case, hence one is reluctant to push Turkey away too.
Exactly. With all the faults of current Turkish government, they are a mile ahead of everyone else in Middle East. The problem is the comparison: they were going forward with EU membership - their government just was way more sane in the past... And there's decent chance that Erdogan will be voted out in 2023.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2023_T...
This isn’t irrelevant to what we are seeing now. He needs some good news/external foes/strongman aura these days.
Turkey is the 2nd most powerful military in NATO after USA. It has access to all modern weapons, manufacturing abilities and above all, centuries of experience in fighting, winning and losing WARS.
Turkey's location is very very important for all kind of military operations and trade via Black Sea.
You, I think, know very little about Turkey's politics to make a claim like that.
PKK & YPG has long been a perceived thorn in Turkey's side and they have largely felt like the rest of NATO has ignored this problem if not actively antagonized them on it.
To them, it's akin to as if the rest of NATO was funding cartels in Mexico.
Turkey controls the Dardanelles Strait.
Turkey would have zero reason to be pro-west in any way without NATO. They've basically been the one fairly stable Muslim-majority, non-oil dictatorship in the Middle East for decades now and it's much better to keep them as a lukewarm ally than have them be an outright enemy.
Vietnam is in a similar position. They're not exactly friends with the US, but the fact they have more motivation to be anti-China than anti-US is a good reason to not antagonize them. They're a strong antagonist against the US's enemies more than they are a full-on ally of the US, and that's a perfectly fine partnership to have.
"But how would they do that? There's no process.. etc."
They can just take a vote and then that's that. Likely Turkey will get some appeasement concessions, but there's no serious risk here.
At the same time, I don’t think they would say no anyway
To your point, they won't say no anyway. All the speculation is, I think, just circus.
This can be very dangerous for Europe. France and Germany also would like to have more diplomacy, just like Turkey. Those countries have to live next to Russia - and maintaining a diplomatic relationship with Russia is vital. And this despite the fact that current Russian leadership is basically criminal.
I don't think Sweden and Finland joining NATO is sending a good signal - or it's diplomatically wise. But let's see...
Ukraine should just give up its independence and land and ability to seek justice for the horrific war crimes?
Russia has the power to de-escalate by withdrawing. Ukraine has the power to de-escalate by ceasing to exist.
Theres a perfectly clear deescalation path and has been since before the war started. This war was many things but inevitable was never one of them.
Deescalation is the last thing NATO or the US wants though.
And Putin says the Minsk agreements no longer exist.
(Updated to fix autocorrect typo)
The way I see it the west either fights for empire or we fight for democracy.
If we fight for democracy then we respect votes we dont like whose results are independently verified by pollsters we trust. Particularly votes that breach the 90%+ threshold. That would match our principles.
In Ukraine neither Kyiv, the west nor Russia fights for democracy though. Everybody fights for power, territory and, ultimately, empire.
The gallup polls simply confirmed that the referendum that was run by Russian troops was more or less free and fair.
I believe this is a good litmus test of peoples belief in democracy as a matter of principle. Belief in democracy means commitment to voting especially when you dont like the result.
It appears a lot of people do not like democracy.
The referendum already happened. My original suggestion was "respect the result" - what 90% or crimeans also want according to gallup - a western pollster.
What you want is for their votes to be "corrected" to fall in line with strategic imperialist objectives. This is a position Putin would understand and respect.
>There can be no legitimate referendum while a territory is under invasion.
Actually I believe there can under three conditions:
* The population want the referendum.
* The referendum wouldnt have happened without invasion.
* No vote coercion happened as a result of the invasion.
All three conditions held for Crimea, as well as certain other places. These conditions held for Iraq also, for example.
Once again: if you want to anull the results of a referendum because you dont like the result where there is no uncertainty about a free and fair result then you can only pretend to respect democracy.
If "whatever they want" means independence and self determination then yes, either you believe they should have it or you give democracy the middle finger.
Theres no middle ground there.
Some people think ukraine should be run from Moscow and fuck what anybody in ukraine thinks. Some people think crimea should be run from Kyiv and fuck what anybody in Crimea thinks. They both hate democracy.
It’s also possible that, as Ukraine’s democracy matured, Crimea would have no longer wanted to leave.
Russia short-circuited that by force.
You cannot respect democracy and want crimea returned to Ukraine.
The two positions are fundamentally incompatible.
I mean, yeah. Thats how panama was born for example. Colombia was kinda mad about it at the time but of all the things the US gets shit for its not even in the top 10.
The US also tried to do something similar (and failed) to Kaliningrad. Only Russia objected.
Theres a pretty long history of the US doing this and nobody really minding.
>I'm sure there are some villages along the Russian border who would be happy to see their land turned into a U.S. military base in exchange for U.S. passports and big piles of money.
I wouldnt be so sure. Argentina tried the same thing with the falklanders and it didnt work. Likewise Trump with Greenland.
Villages also wouldnt survive if they were severed economically.
Crimea wasnt bought, anyway. It's just 90% ethnically Russian and objected vociferously to the maidan.
You framed your earlier comment as being about democracy without qualifications. I'm wondering how far you'd go with that. Is every border territory only a 50.1% vote away from changing countries? How often can these votes be held? Do they require international observation?
85% agreed with the result.
Russia didnt run that poll. We did. No troops were standing behind the answerers. It agreed entirely with the result of the referendum.
If we hypothesize coercion or fraud in crimea the poll would have disagreed with the results. It didnt.
Coming up with ever thinner pretexts for rejecting the result of this referendum is simply a rejection of democracy - that thing we are supposed to be fighting for.
I dont know if 50.0% deserves to be the threshold but whatever the threshold is Im damn sure it's below 90%.
>How often can these votes be held?
Not sure if theres a clear answer to that. If enough of the population wants a vote i guess there should be one.
If there is one and 90% arent voting for the status quo there clearly needed to be one.
>Do they require international observation?
Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.
If observers are absent and theres no evidence of fraud or coercion though thats not a good enough reason to reject a vote, especially when the result isnt close.
In crimea i find the "international observers" argument especially disingenuous though. The two sides were "referendum without western observers" (Russia) and "no referendum at all, ever" (Kyiv/West).
Ive heard hundreds if not thousands of people reject the idea that the crimean referendum was valid because of a lack of western observers. Not a single one of them rejected kyiv's position that there shouldnt be a referendum at all.
The normal legality is that a state is governed by a national constitution that requires some supermajority to make major changes. Participating in a government formed by that constitution implies consent to it. If Ukrainian Crimea wanted to leave Ukraine then they could have looked for national support according to both regular and constitutional law. If they couldn't get the national votes then that's all there is to it. Democracy in action.
There are areas in the U.S. that heavily favor one party or the other, including rural border counties that went for Trump well over 80% in 2020. If one of these counties voted to secede after Biden won, that vote would simply have been illegal under laws they themselves had previously consented to. If prior to the secession vote some other country had sent passports and then troops to seize government buildings and "secure fair elections" or whatever, that would have been both ridiculous and hostile.
> Ideally. I'd love to see international observers in all elections. Would be great if e.g. Venezuelan election observers got to monitor US elections.
Venezuelans or most anyone else are free to come into the U.S. and observe voting stations from the outside like any other private person who isn't actively casting a vote, and conduct whatever exit polls they can convince people to take.
What kind of de-escalation is possible when it's Russia attacking the Ukrainian territory? Also it's not like RF can be trusted to stick to agreements, so what's the point in talks?
Yeah, I wonder about that. Suppose Russia nuked some allied target. Is the USA willing to escalate to global nuclear war over that? Something tells me they won't come to anyone's aid.
If the Russians had succeeded with Ukraine, Lithuania or Poland would be next. Or Finland, or Sweden, or any other neighbour Russia deems weak enough to conquer with direct military force. You get my point.
Russian territorial expansion is a recurring pattern, and no amount of western self-humiliation via "de-escalation" was going to end it.
It had to end somewhere. As a Ukrainian who had to spend several weeks in evacuation in Lviv this spring, I'm glad it ended in Ukraine. (At least the new US Lend-Lease Act gives us hope that the wave of Russian territorial expansion will end in Ukraine.) Otherwise we'd have mass executions of civilians, as we had in Bucha, all over the 40 million country. A new Holocaust. For Ukrainians, as a nation, US Lend-Lease Act, military equipment aid from UK and other western nations who participated in Ramstein defence conference is the real salvation. And the day the Russian invaders are expelled would become a second Independence Day, as in the history of Kuwait and Iraq.