Turkey’s President Recep Erdoğan is making a fresh stab at gaining entry to the European Union.
Turkish acceptance into the bloc is a prerequisite for Sweden’s membership of NATO, which Turkey has been blocking for more than a year, he says.
“First open the way for Turkey’s accession to the European Union, and then we open the way for Sweden,” Erdoğan said on July 10.
In a phone call to US President Joe Biden on Sunday Erdoğan demanded the EU signals renewed support for his nation’s entry to the bloc during the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
A tweet from the Turkish President’s office said that Erdoğan told Biden he “expects a message of open and strong support from … the EU leadership for Ankara’s EU membership”.
At the high-level meeting of NATO leaders in Lithuania on July 11 and 12, Sweden’s application to join the alliance and Turkey’s blocking of it is set to be at the top of the agenda.
It is reported that Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will be holding bilateral talks with Erdoğan ahead of the meeting. Along with other talks between the Turkish leader and Biden there are hopes the diplomatic impasse will be resolved, enabling Sweden to join NATO.
Turkey has continually blocked Sweden’s alliance membership after Stockholm applied to join in May last year. Erdoğan’s main concerns relate to the presence of supporters of the Kurdish PKK terrorist movement in the Nordic country, alongside a spate of burnings of the Islamic religious text the Quran there.
However, Turkey’s stance has not found much favour among its European neighbours.
Many view Erdoğan’s latest pronouncement as being tantamount to blackmail. Observers say his demands for the repatriation not only covers PKK terrorists but also includes many Turkish opposition activists in exile. His insistence that Sweden crack down on Quran burnings is also seen as playing to his domestic audience.
Erdoğan’s push for EU membership comes alongside his demands for the US to upgrade Turkey’s fighter jet fleet.
The European Commission does not seem keen on the EU and NATO membership processes being combined. Speaking at a press briefing on July 10, an EC spokesperson insisted that the two countries’ applications to two different organisations need to remain separate issues.
Observers say the current situation will only lead to more complication for NATO and the EU, as both are trying to expand in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden “conveyed his desire to welcome Sweden into NATO as soon as possible” Reuters reports.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has also said he wants to have Swedish NATO membership confirmed this week at the Vilnius summit.
While Turkey has been trying to join the EU since the 1980s, its progress has pretty much stalled in recent years. The bloc has been critical of Erdoğan’s regime, which some say has become increasingly authoritarian and dictatorial after he and his party survived a coup attempt in July 2016.
