Sweden and Finland Should’ve thought twice prior to pleading to Turkey for NATO Membership!

Omar Sindi | Exclusive to iKurd.net

During the Cold War era which lasted several decades, between the NATO and The Warsaw Pact which was collectively known as a defense pact treaty of the former Soviet Union and their client states. Both democratic states, Sweden and Finland Stayed neutral- a ”Policy of military non-alignment”. However, after Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine (which is not going as Putin wished), and the ongoing war has become a quagmire for the Russian dictator; it’s highly possible this perilous venture could cause a power change in Moscow or even poise further break ups within Russian territory. Those two countries made a rush to join NATO because of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, almost all the NATO member countries were receptive to prompt their request ratifications, with exception of two authoritarians head of state: Viktor Orban-prime minister of Hungary and President Recep Erdogan-Turkey. It has been reported that Mr. Orban has indicated, “Hungary will ratify Sweden and Finland to join NATO membership.”

Since the admittance is to be unanimous consensus by all the NATO members, Mr. Erdogan wants to use these two countries’ accession to NATO to his regimes of full political advantage; to blackmail NATO while ignoring bolstering NATO’s geostrategic expansion, disregarding European alliance common interests, disregarding the United States as a superpower. This indicates that the Turkish state joined NATO not by desire, it joined NATO by need. President Erdogan is threatening another country, a NATO member, the Greek government, with invasion and telling the United States to leave the region.

“Maritime Security [-] Who will Control the Black Sea?”- “Stalin’s pressure prompts Turkey to join NATO -Although the overall result was advantageous for the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin was not satisfied. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Stalin raised the issue of revising the Montreux Convention. I t was agreed that the “Three Powers” (Soviet Union, the UK and the U.S.) would take up the issue with the Turkish government .But Soviet pressure on Turkey to give up territory and agree to joint control over the Straits pushed Turkey into joining NATO in 1952.” – DRYAD GLOBAL.

President Erdogan’s behavior on the global stage since he came to power in 2002, has revealed something, it is that the Turkish state under Erdogan is unlikely to be a responsible world agent any time soon; he is reactive, not proactive.

President Erdogan uses Machiavellian tactics, he knows Europeans and the United States are currently pretty much preoccupied with assisting the Ukrainian people against Russia’s invasion of their country. Iran’s government which has backed Bashar Assad’s regime of civil war for years economically and militarily, is also currently dealing with anti-government demonstrations, which is ongoing in many Iranian cities and towns. So this is a unique opportunity for this warmonger Erdogan, to continue in his project to invade more of Syria, to extend more territory, in order to revitalize his neo-Ottoman Empire re-colonization ambitions, to place his Islamic gangsters, these Jihadis mustered under Turkish auspices – Organized against the Kurdish people, just like his Islamic terrorist gangsters are in Afrin terrorizing local people, even extracting olive trees from people’s orchids and farmlands and selling them in the black markets.

Terroristic act which occurred on November 13, 2022; what happened that day, popular Istiklal Avenue, in Istanbul, is abhorrent, many innocent people lost their lives; however the Erdogan Government quickly decided a fait accompli without showing solid evidence, or to have a proper investigation to produce evidence(s), they quickly found a female terrorist actor, who they say she is belong to Autonomous Administration of Northern and East Syria (In Rojava Kurdistan) and “Turkey Accuses U.S. of Complicity in Istanbul Attack” – The New York Times.

What is puzzling, in a nutshell, the two Former US ambassadors James F. Jeffrey and Robert Ford, are both working for “think tanks” and if they are not Turkish government lobbyists, they certainly act like it, only giving a positive spin on Turkish policy? In their writing articles and their interviews with various media outlets emphasizing and praising the importance of Turkey within the NATO alliance and the way they defend the Turkish policy agendas, perhaps President Erdogan does not know how to defend his government’s aggressive action policy? They don’t criticize why Turkey supports several Islamic terrorist organizations, especially in Syria, those terrorist organizations are committing several gross human rights violations; they don’t write why Turkey doesn’t support sanctions against Iran’s clerical government because of Mullah’s malign foreign policy and gross human rights violation? They don’t write why Turkey purchased “S-400, a mobile surface-to-air missile system” that is against NATO alliance policy, that is riddled with strategic blunder? They don’t write about how Turkish forces are in many foreign countries illegally, that’s against international law? Why don’t they write about the Turkish border as a gateway for jihadists to join the so-called Islamic state to fight in Iraq and Syria, while the Kurdish people are assisting the Global Coalition against Daesh and are foot soldiers in fighting against this nihilistic ISIS Organization? In 1992, Turkish media outlets called Nelson Mandela the president of South Africa an “Ugly African”, why didn’t they write or criticize? etc.

Turkey called Nelson Mandela "ugly African" — In 1992 Turkey openly called Nelson Mandela an “ugly African”, when he proudly rejected Turkey’s “Atatürk prize” because of Turkey’s oppression of the Kurds. Mandela also said “If you want to know about the Turkish government, be a Kurd for one hour”. Photo: SM

The Erdogan government deserves to receive a stiffly imposed international economic sanction; the way that Apartheid system of the White minority regime received in the 1980’s in South Africa. The imposition of international sanctions on Turkey needs to stay on, until the Turkish government changes its policy towards the Kurds internally or outside its border. Black American leaders influenced the United States Congress to impose sanctions on the South African White Minority government. The issue is, the Kurds do not have that political cloud or influence in the United States Congress; the larger issue for the Kurds is also incoherent political strategy and the disunity among Kurds political parties and their leaders…

Many countries’ leaders and heads of state, including the United Nations (UN) General secretary Antonio Guterres, condemn the terrorist attack in Istanbul, Turkey and send their condolences to the victims and their families; which is good to be accolades for that empathy. However, about a day later the Turkish state started a ferocious attack with fighter jets and drones, artillery, on both Autonomous regions of Kurdistan in Iraq and in Syria and many, many innocent, non-combatant people including children were killed and injured, who had nothing to do with politics. The UN Secretary General should’ve also condemned that unprovoked attacks and sent his condolence to those victims and their families too. It would have been more accolades to the repetition of the UN, but it was conspicuously ignored due to the double standards and realpolitik.

During the Cold War era, many authoritarian regimes, dictators allied themselves with the Western liberal democratic governments because they feared the Communist Political Party sphere of influence with either Soviet Union or Chinese Communist’s potential ability to overthrow them from power in their respective countries. Now, the Communist dogma is dead, now neither Russia nor Chinese appear to support financially or politically any foreign Communist Party. These dictatorial regimes are more allying themselves with Chinese or Russian, for example a recent Chinese President Xi Jinping trip to Saudi Arabia, for establishing economic trade… or Erdogan’s relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, bilateral economic relations, etc.

On Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO membership: There is a proverb. ”If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck.” So in order to obtain approval from Erdogan, both countries leaders may act like Erdogan, walk like Erdogan, and rant like Erdogan, behave like Erdogan: first for most to be anti-Kurd, digressing democratic systems of government, put political party oppositions in jail, or chase them out of the country, and then maybe they could present their country’s constitutions to Turkish president to say your highness Mr. President Erdogan, we have exhausted all our pleas, now, which code of our constitution would you like us to change to your liking, in order to gain your approval for the entry to NATO membership?

It’s a shame and pathetic that NATO Countries for decades have tolerated a zero sum-game in the reckless Turkish state by allowing them to be within their ranks.

Omar Sindi, a senior writer, analyst and columnist for iKurd.net, Washington, United States.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.