Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused Europe of both «secretly and openly» backing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), declared a terrorist organization by Ankara, in a new reference to the diplomatic crisis with Sweden and Finland, whose aspirations to join NATO are threatened by Turkey’s veto for hosting individuals associated with this and similar organizations.
«It is clear that it will be difficult for us to build a common future with a Europe that supports, secretly and openly, the terrorist groups against which Turkey is fighting,» the president said Friday at the TRT World Forum held in Istanbul, the scene last November 13 of an attack that cost the lives of six people, which the Turkish authorities have blamed on the PKK, which in turn has denied any involvement.
This attack triggered a new Turkish military campaign in Syria Iraq, operation ‘Sword Claw’, the latest in a long war of bombing against Kurdish positions in both countries.
«We are a country that preferred to walk with Europe after World War II but, despite all the sacrifices we have made, we will never forget that we have been left alone in our fight against terrorist groups that threaten our unity,» the president has lamented in comments reported by the ‘Daily Sabah’.
«That,» Erdogan added, «not to mention the implicit embargoes imposed on us,» in another veiled reference to the refusal of Sweden and Finland to trade arms with Turkey, and before accusing the United States of supplying weapons to the Kurdish militias that Turkey is fighting, and which Washington considers by contrast as an essential ally in the fight against what remains of the Islamic State jihadist organization in Syria and Iraq.
These statements come a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed on Thursday his conviction that Finland and Sweden will soon be welcomed as NATO members despite Turkey’s misgivings, and that even ministers from both countries were receptive to an opening of the arms trade with Ankara, as well as having begun the process of extradition of individuals associated with the PKK.
«I am convinced that Finland and Sweden will soon be formally welcomed as (NATO) members. Since the NATO summit in Madrid, both countries have taken important concrete steps to fulfill their commitments, including those related to the security concerns of our ally Turkey,» Blinken said during a three-way meeting in Washington with his Swedish and Finnish counterparts Tobias Billstrom and Pekka Haavisto, as reported by Swedish public television SVT.
Billstrom, for his part, thanked Blinken for the U.S. commitment to European security, its financial support for Ukraine and its support for Finland’s and Sweden’s applications. «Our NATO accession processes are progressing well. We look forward to joining and contributing to the alliance,» the minister has made known.
On the other hand, Finland is considering granting export permits for certain weapons to Turkey, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen also said Thursday during talks on the Nordic country’s NATO candidacy in Ankara.
Finland could process some export applications «in the near future,» Finnish radio station YLE quoted Kaikkonen as saying. However, the weapons would not be delivered without careful controls, the minister added, following in Sweden’s footsteps in this regard.
Sweden, it should also be recalled, extradited last weekend Mahmut Tat, a member of the Union of Kurdish Communities, the «umbrella» group that brings together among others the PKK, sentenced to six years and ten months in prison, reports the official Turkish news agency Anatolia, after denying him political asylum.
