A lot of attention was paid to the events taking place at the recent NATO summit in Madrid, especially what will happen to the eventual membership of Sweden and Finland? Turkey seemed to be blocking the membership of the two northern countries, and as a condition they asked for a serious price.

The second half of May was exciting for NATO: Sweden and Finland, which had avoided membership for so long, submitted their application to join the alliance. Most experts predicted that NATO would welcome the two future members to the alliance at its summit at the end of June.

However, Turkey dampened the excitement by withholding its contribution and complaining against the two countries, especially Sweden, for supporting certain Kurdish groups.

Compared to this, however , the agreement was reached

In the tripartite memorandum of June 28 - in the creation of which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Biden administration played a significant role - the three countries agreed that

"Finland and Sweden, as future NATO allies, fully support Turkey against threats to its national security. To this end, Finland and Sweden do not provide support to the YPG/PYD [Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units and their affiliated Democratic Union Party].

The statement continued: "Finland and Sweden unequivocally condemn all terrorist organizations that carry out attacks against Turkey and express their deep solidarity with Turkey and the families of the victims."

All this was an important victory for Turkey. Last November, the ruling Swedish Social Democrats promised to deepen their cooperation with the PYD, the Kurdish left-wing party that is a member organization of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) separatist movement.

How did the Swedish Social Democrats make such a promise?

Because they were trying to find a parliamentary majority for their minority government, and in order to achieve the already precarious, one-vote parliamentary majority, they had to win over parliamentarian Amineh Kakabaveh, who was kicked out of the Swedish Left Party and currently sits as an independent.

Kakabaveh, a former Peshmerga fighter (the Kurdish branch of the Iraqi armed forces), maximized his influence by demanding support for Kurdish causes.

"Everyone bows to Erdogan, only because there is a problem with Putin"

Kakabaveh said in one of his many interviews with international media.

At the end of June, however, the Swedish parliament finished its work, which will only continue after the parliamentary elections in September, probably in a different division. Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson thus no longer owed anything to Kakabaveh, who cannot be re-elected anyway due to lack of party membership, and could sign the memorandum with Turkey.

As, of course, is Finland, whose NATO membership did not sting Turkey's eyes nearly as much.

Although the devil of any intergovernmental agreement lies in the implementation, the Swedish-Finnish-Turkish memorandum was definitely a victory for Turkey. In addition to condemning support for the PYD, Sweden and Finland have pledged to lift the suspension of arms exports to Turkey and to

"proceeding Turkey's pending deportation or extradition requests for terrorist suspects will be dealt with promptly and thoroughly, taking into account the information, evidence and intelligence provided by Turkey."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan explained what this means in the Turkish media: Sweden must extradite 73 suspected terrorists to Turkey, he announced.

Meanwhile, Washington has signaled its willingness to sell Ankara new F-16 fighter jets and modernization equipment for existing F-16s.

Many members of Sweden's large Kurdish minority - who have been coming to Sweden as refugees for decades - were outraged by the deal. But as one high-ranking official of a NATO member state put it: "Sweden and Finland have learned the first lesson of collective defense": some members of the collective can be difficult, even hostile, but for the sake of everyone's safety, you have to cooperate with them.

Sweden and Finland can of course try to delay the implementation of the obligations assumed in the memorandum.

But in the end, Erdogan's opposition to the membership of the two Nordic countries was not what many suspected, namely to acquire new F-16s. In fact, it was Kurdish terrorism, which is a very real national security problem for Turkey.

With Sweden and Finland wanting to join the alliance, Erdogan was given the opportunity to demand concessions he had long desired.

Of course, all of this is a sad turn of events for the Kurdish community, but it must be understood that Sweden had to weigh up its national security interests and the interests of a community whose majority lives in the Middle East.

Source: americanmilitarynews.com

Featured Image: Recep Tayyip Erdogan / AFP/ 2021 Anadolu Agency / Emin Sansar