Turkey’s Blocking Sweden’s NATO Accession Has Nothing To Do With The Quran Desecration In Stockholm

Yesterday, after a Cabinet meeting in the Turkish capital Ankara, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Sweden should not expect Turkiye's support for its NATO membership after permitting protests in Stockholm that involved burning of a copy of the Quran near the Turkish Embassy.

In an important milestone for NATO, both Sweden and Finland officially requested membership after seventy-two years of neutrality, a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. However, all 30 members of NATO must approve the proposal for it to be accepted - including Turkiye, who has not yet given their support.

Turkiye's decision to delay or block Swedish and Finnish membership does not stem from the anti-Turkiye or anti-Erdogan protests in Stockholm or the burning of a copy of the Quran by a far-right politician. Turkiye's actions cannot be attributed solely to Sweden's stance on those Ankara considers terrorists. Rather, Turkiye's decisions have more to do with its relationship between Washington and Moscow than Stockholm.

If the concerns Ankara brought about Sweden were issues of principle for Turkiye, the country would have declared its exit from NATO. The grievances the country had against Sweden are not unique, as similar issues exist with multiple other members, including the United States, Germany and France.

Ankara’s prevention of these states' access is a tactical move aimed at balancing its relationship with Russia and using it as leverage against the West to extract concessions. The success of this move is particularly pertinent for President Erdogan in the context of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkiye in May 2023.

Three principal factors behind Turkiye’s veto:

Around the time when Sweden and Finland revealed their intention to become members of NATO in April 2019, President Erdogan had three objectives that he sought to achieve: to strengthen Turkiye's balance between Russia and the West in light of the Ukraine conflict; to launch an offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in Syria; and to secure a deal with the U.S. that would allow Ankara access to F-16 fighter jets, as well as reinstate Turkiye's admittance into the F35 programme.

When Stockholm and Helsinki applied to become members of NATO, the Turkish President seized upon the opportunity. The reasons for vetoing the accession were invented later.

1. Transforming the bilateral issue into one on the international level: Turkiye first attempted to transform a bilateral issue between Turkiye and Sweden into a multilateral one, primarily with the intention of involving the U.S. in the discussions. As verified by a senior government politician to me, Ankara viewed this situation primarily as a multilateral affair.

2. Using the veto as leverage in Ankara’s balancing act: Subsequently, Ankara attempted to use its veto against the Swedish and Finnish memberships to preserve an equilibrium in its relations with Russia. Turkiye and Russia are engaged in an adversarial collaboration in at least three active conflicts on three continents, as well as multilevel trade and defence relationships. The balance of power between Moscow and Ankara is asymmetrical to Turkiye’s detriment.

The significance of Sweden and Finland becoming NATO members is obvious for Moscow, which is worried that these countries could become potential launching pads for NATO forces against Russia, as they are geographically close to the country and share a border with it.

3. Garnering support for a Turkish incursion into northeast Syria: In the early days, Turkiye pushed not only that the West or Russia should green light a Turkish ground incursion against the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces in Syria but to actively support it.

Turkiye’s refusal to approve Swedish and Finnish membership helped preventing Washington or Moscow from taking a more powerful stance against Turkish incursion into Syria. When Turkiye announced its opposition to the new NATO applicants, Moscow had indeed sent diplomatic messages through Foreign Minister Lavrov to the effect that Russia understands Turkiye’s security concerns in Syria.

A U.S. official later confirmed to me that it wasn't Washington that blocked a Turkish incursion in those days either. Ankara had later abandoned a full incursion due to other political and military factors, which I will address in a separate article.

Asymmetrical political costs of blockage in Sweden and Turkiye:

There is no domestic political cost for President Erdogan to block Sweden's entry to NATO. That is unless there is a strong, coordinated backlash against the Turkish government from NATO countries, which could potentially have domestic political ramifications. Despite the public rhetoric, the risk of a well-orchestrated backlash against Turkiye remains minimal.

Conversely, securing Turkiye's approval could bring a host of political ramifications for Sweden, such as an uptick in far-right activity and intensified political and societal divisions within the country.

This debacle, among other things, highlights Sweden's lack of capability to comprehend and correctly address a figure like Erdogan, exposing the nation’s political and intellectual inadequacies.

Ultimately, President Erdogan cannot keep the Finland-Sweden issue in the air forever. Soon he will have to decide whether to allow or permanently block their membership, letting down either Russia or the U.S. That means he has a limited window of opportunity.