What Turkey’s Erdogan really wants

By ALEXANDER WARD and QUINT FORGEY, Politico.com,

Turkish President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN has chosen to be the skunk at Finland and Sweden’s NATO garden party.

The legislatures of all 30 members, including Turkey, must approve the two nations’ accessions to the alliance, putting Erdogan in prime position to derail the historic moves. But why is he choosing this moment to antagonize the West, especially when Turkey is actively helping Ukraine kill Russian invaders?

Experts NatSec Daily spoke with cited three key reasons: 1) a genuine grievance against Sweden’s ties to Kurds, 2) Erdogan’s bid to stay in power amid an economic downturn, and 3) signal to Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN that Ankara and Moscow can still be friends.

Let’s begin with the Kurds: Sweden was very open about its support for Western-backed, Kurdish-led forces fighting ISIS in Syria. Even with the terrorist group down and out, Stockholm has kept up ties with Kurdish-led fighters that Turkey considers terrorists.

What’s more, on Tuesday Turkish Justice Minister BEKIR BOZDAG said that neither Sweden nor Finland have extradited a single suspect Ankara believes form part of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) or follow cleric FETHULLAH GÜLEN, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

“Turkey really wants to make an example of Sweden” in particular, said SONER CAGAPTAY, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The message to Stockholm and other Western capitals, he continued, is “don’t make the Kurdish ties permanent, don’t make them strategic.”

GIRAN OZCAN, executive director of the Kurdish Peace Institute in Washington, D.C., called Erdogan’s arguments about Sweden and the Kurds “spurious,” adding that he has “handed a free gift to a fellow warmongering autocrat in Moscow at the same time.”

Erdogan also has his eyes on domestic politics. Inflation in Turkey is pushing into the triple digits, plunging an already reeling economy deeper into crisis. That poses problems for the president ahead of elections in 2023, especially as the opposition unites against him.

One way to take back the reins is to simultaneously bash the Kurds while extracting concessions from Sweden, Finland and potentially other NATO allies, including the United States. Two possible aims are to have the applicants lift their arms embargoes on Turkey and/or push the U.S. to finally approve the sale of F-16 fighter jets stalled in Congress.

Even if those concessions are symbolic — say, Sweden promises to weaken its relationship with the Kurds over time — Erdogan-friendly media in Turkey can portray it as a huge win and the president himself as a strongman who brings the West to heel. Such coverage could give Erdogan the lift he needs before voters go to the ballot box, even if the election is already allegedly rigged in his favor.

Then there’s the matter of Russia. Erdogan and Putin get along very well despite their main geopolitical disagreements, including on the Ukraine invasion. Maintaining that relationship requires a lot of give and take, and in this case, Erdogan could be trying to please Putin by making a stink over Sweden and Finland’s NATO applications.

“Turkey values its defense cooperation with Ukraine, but also needs to keep relations with Russia amicable for tourism, energy and other factors that shape domestic approval rating, especially given Turkey’s economic crisis and the diminished support for [Erdogan’s party] that resulted from it,” said LISEL HINTZ, a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Maintaining access to Russian-controlled airspace in northern Syria to strike Kurdish-led forces is important, too, she said.

Most people we spoke with said Erdogan will eventually back down after making his points and getting something in return. On Wednesday, White House national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN said the administration was “confident” Sweden and Finland would soon join NATO after overcoming the Turkey obstacle.

And speaking alongside President JOE BIDEN on Thursday, the leaders of Sweden and Finland said they’d work with Turkey to address its concerns. Meanwhile, the Senate looks poised to strongly vote in favor of accession for the two countries.

But some aren’t convinced that Erdogan and his team will relent so easily. “Turkish officials both think they are morally right in voicing their opposition and believe that they may profit from it. I don’t think that this is merely symbolic,” said HOWARD EISSENSTAT of St. Lawrence University. “There may well be a way to bring Turkey around, but I fear that diplomats are being overly sanguine about the barriers to agreement.”