Ankara’s brinkmanship over Finland and Sweden’s NATO bids will likely come at a price.
The upcoming NATO summit in late June was expected to be a celebration of regained Western solidarity by starting off Finland and Sweden’s accession process to NATO — a dramatic break away from both Nordic countries’ decades-long non-aligned policies.
Yet less than a week before the summit, such hopes have been mostly dashed, as Ankara will likely maintain its stand against the Nordic nations’ accessions and continue to be the only country which threatens to veto the Swedish and Finnish bids unless its preconditions are met. The tripartite talks between Turkish, Finnish and Swedish officials in Brussels June 19-20 under the auspices of NATO also “ended inconclusively,” further diminishing the prospect of a potential breakthrough at the upcoming summit.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s brinkmanship evokes memories of Turkey-EU talks back in 2004. Trying to secure a date to begin membership negotiations for Turkey’s decades-old EU membership bid, then-Prime Minister Erdogan played a similar hand by walking away from the talks. He and his entourage returned only after intense diplomacy by UK, German, French and Italian leaders. Erdogan’s first brinkmanship at the time had paid off, and Turkey secured a date for the start of negotiations.
