Kurds are demonstrating against the Turkish government in the Swedish capital of Stockholm.
Image: TT NEWS AGENCY via AP
Sweden and Finland have now officially applied for NATO membership. But Turkish President Erdogan is stonewalling. What is the truth of his claim that the two countries support terrorist organizations?
“A fish only comes to its senses when caught in a net,” is a Turkish proverb, and it pretty much describes the Turkish government’s position on the possible NATO accession of Sweden and Finland – or at least what leaks out of it . In the past few days, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu have repeatedly accused the two states of supporting terrorist organizations, more precisely: the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK, the Gülen movement and the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria.
Even if the West’s attitude to these organizations is different, Ankara has long been bothered by it. Now that the two northern European countries are desperate to join the defensive alliance in the face of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the Turkish government seems to have found a lever to bring the “fish” to their senses.