Turkey's Erdogan hints he'll hold Finland and Sweden's NATO bids hostage unless he gets concessions

• Turkey's Erdogan once again expressed opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
• But based on comments from him and other officials, Turkey may just be looking for concessions.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated on Monday that he would not support Finland and Sweden joining NATO, once again accusing the Scandinavian countries of supporting terrorists. The Turkish leader also said Ankara couldn't back the NATO aspirations of countries that impose sanctions against Turkey.

Erdogan said that delegations from Helsinki and Stockholm shouldn't bother coming to Ankara to persuade Turkey to change its position, which came after reports that the Swedish and Finnish foreign minister's would "soon" travel to the Turkish capital to discuss the matter.

"We will not say 'yes,'" to Finland and Sweden's NATO applications, Erdogan said on Monday, per The Guardian. Erdogan said that neither country has "a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organisations." He asked: "How can we trust them?"

Finland announced its intention to formally apply for NATO on Sunday, and Sweden quickly followed. Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine catalyzed this historic, rapid shift in policy for both countries, which have been militarily non-aligned for decades. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said the two would be welcomed into the alliance with open arms.

But NATO enlargement requires unanimous support from current members, and Erdogan is seemingly trying to leverage Turkey's vote in order to gain concessions from the two countries regarding Kurdish militants Ankara views as terrorists as well as arms export embargoes.

Ankara has repeatedly taken issue with Western governments like Sweden over their support for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The dominant fighting force in the SDF, which has been the West's main partner in the fight against ISIS, is the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist organization, associating it with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) — a militant, separatist group that has waged a violent campaign against the Turkish government since the mid-1980s as part of an effort to establish an independent Kurdish state.

The YPG has denied having any explicit organizational links with the PKK, but Turkey effectively views them as one in the same. The US also views the PKK as a terror group, but it hasn't taken the same stance toward the YPG and has worked closely with the SDF in the campaign against ISIS. Turkey has also rebuked the US over its support for the SDF.

This complex backdrop helps explain why Erdogan on Friday said he did not view Finland and Sweden's NATO aspirations positively and accused them of harboring terrorist organizations.

Over the weekend, Turkey's top diplomat appeared to signal that there was room for negotiation on the issue, laying out Ankara's demands in this regard.

"There absolutely needs to be security guarantees here. They need to stop supporting terrorist organizations," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Berlin, per Reuters. The Turkish government has demanded that Finland and Sweden extradite suspected members of Kurdish militant groups like the PKK, while also calling for the two countries to lift restrictions on arms exports to Turkey that were imposed over military actions in Syria in 2019.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesperson for Erdogan, on Saturday told Reuters that Turkey was "not closing the door" on Finland and Sweden's NATO bids. "But we are basically raising this issue as a matter of national security for Turkey," Kalin added.

Erdogan is running for re-election next year, and could be trying to score political points domestically by tying this issue to Turkey's issues with Kurdish militant groups.

"Erdogan decided to make this very public and announce Turkey's position, with a view also to obtain support domestically," Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat, told the Wall Street Journal, adding, "This is how he operates. He always has an eye to domestic politics."

Stoltenberg, the NATO chief, on Sunday said he did not believe it was Turkey's intention to prevent Sweden and Finland from joining the alliance. "Turkey has made it clear: Their intention is not to block membership," Stoltenberg told reporters Sunday, the Washington Post reported. "Therefore, I am confident we'll be able to address the concerns that Turkey has expressed in a way that doesn't delay the accession process."

But Erdogan's comments on Monday threw more uncertainty into the process. Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, offered remarks on the latest moves that stood in stark contrast with Moscow's generally hardline stance and threats against NATO expansion.

"Russia has no problem with these states — none," Putin said to the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led military alliance. "And so in this sense there is no immediate threat to Russia from an expansion of NATO to include these countries," he added, according to Reuters.

Previously, Russia threatened military retaliation if Finland and Sweden joined NATO. That said, Putin on Monday added that "the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke our response."