Former NATO official says Erdoğan 'holding NATO hostage for his national policy objectives'

Click to read the article in Turkish

Stefanie Babst, the former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, gave an interview to Sweden's state broadcaster SVT about the country's NATO membership application and Turkey's objections.

About President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's statement that Finland and Sweden are "like guesthouses for terrorist organizations," she said, "We have seen that he has used this script before. This is a message toward his electoral base at home" and accused Erdoğan of "holding NATO hostage."

"At the end of the day, I'm pretty positive that it will be solved, but there will certainly be a couple of weeks ahead of us filled with crisis diplomacy and some upheaval. So, it won't be an easy ride," she said.

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Here is the relevant part of the interview:

Turkey has a long list of demands on Sweden; but do you really think this is what this dispute is about?

No, I don't think it's really about what President Erdoğan has said. We have seen that he has used this script before. This is a message toward his electoral base at home. He has an election ahead of himself. The economic situation in Turkey is pretty gruesome. So, he wants to demonstrate leadership; he wants to demonstrate that he is a herd leader. So he's, I'm afraid to say, using Finland and Sweden in order to get his strategic messages across.

What kind of concessions do you think Sweden needs to make?

I think Sweden has already, under the leadership of the late Prime Minister Olof Palme who recognized the PKK as a terrorist organization, and it is up to Sweden to organize its domestic legislation on how to deal with alleged terrorist activities.

So, I don't see that there is much room for maneuvering; perhaps there is more when it comes to Sweden's weapon or arms embargo that it has released towards Turkey following its 2019 military invasion in Northern Syria. That remains to be seen as to whether the Turkish government would accept such a concession from Sweden.

So you don't expect any actual changes in policy but more a question of verbal insurances?

Right. But I think this is a two-way street. The other allies would need to make clear to President Erdoğan that he is taking Sweden and Finland and all other 30 NATO ally countries hostage — political hostage — to his own national policy objectives. This, I personally think, is absolutely unacceptable given that we are in a fundamental crisis in Europe. We are in the midst of a war in the midst of Europe. So, all allies, including Sweden and Finland, as new member countries, should convey at the forthcoming summit in Madrid its full-fledged political cohesion and transatlantic solidarity. And he holds that hostage and puts this really at risk." (SD/VK)