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Half measures in Turkey

2022-06-07T10:47:11.819Z


Erdogan blocks the expansion of NATO by imposing his veto on the entry of Finland and Sweden Despite the overwhelming condemnation of 141 countries against Putin in the United Nations General Assembly vote, five voted against, 35 abstained and 12 did not vote. This was not the case of Turkey, which condemned the invasion, but did not want to join the sanctions imposed by the European Union and thus maintains a calculated position that avoids incurring the animosity of the Kremlin and at t


Despite the overwhelming condemnation of 141 countries against Putin in the United Nations General Assembly vote, five voted against, 35 abstained and 12 did not vote.

This was not the case of Turkey, which condemned the invasion, but did not want to join the sanctions imposed by the European Union and thus maintains a calculated position that avoids incurring the animosity of the Kremlin and at the same time maintains the ties that bind it to the allies. Europeans.

Turkey has expressed its veto to Finland and Sweden's request to join NATO and it is the required unanimity that it is using as an instrument of pressure for which there is no institutional remedy: the Atlantic Alliance has no exit door or expulsion system of their partners.

Turkey is perhaps the most uncomfortable state in the Alliance because discrepancies have been growing in recent years, despite having the Incirlik air base, one of the most prominent in NATO and a nuclear weapons warehouse.

Since the Russian invasion, Ankara has supplied Ukraine with Bayraktar drones and has also acted as a facilitator and venue for contacts between the contenders for a ceasefire.

Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, maintains open channels with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, while Turkish public opinion, as is the case in much of Africa and Asia, is mostly attracted by an equidistant guideline, for which it attributes historical responsibilities to NATO. and to the United States even if it blames and condemns the current atrocities of Putin.

But Ankara has also bought S-400 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia, incompatible with NATO systems.

In its intervention in Syria, coordinated with Moscow and conditioned above all by its anti-Kurdish policy, it has had no problem favoring the Islamic State and now conditions the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO to the imposition of restrictions on the Turkish opposition in the Scandinavian exile, both to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and to the brotherhood of the cleric Fethullah Gülen.

Erdogan's strength is undeniable, but the blockade to which his position leads does not contribute to strengthening unity against Putin while his regime, especially since Erdogan became president of the republic in 2014, has been drifting towards openly illiberal positions and distanced of the values ​​that define the Atlantic Alliance.

His territory has an exceptional geopolitical value, at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East and with maritime control of the straits and the Black Sea.

But he faces the indisputable need for NATO to reinforce the northern and eastern flank in the face of Putin's aggressive attitude, something that presumably will happen in any case, with the Ankara agreement or without it.


Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-06-07

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