Informed Comment – January 24, 2023

Erdogan Says Swedish NATO Application out
of Question after Qur’an burning in Stockholm

By Juan Cole

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Sweden can forget about membership in the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Erdogan is demanding that Sweden cooperate with Turkey in repressing Kurdish activist expatriates in Sweden, all of whom he views as terrorists. He also says he is furious about the stunt pulled by Danish-Swedish Islamophobe Rasmus Palodan of burning the holy Qur’an near the Turkish embassy. Paludan is the leader of the far right “Hard-Line Party” (Stram Kurs). No subtleties for these fascists, I guess.

Pal Jonson, the Swedish Defense Minister, had been slated to visit Turkey on Jan. 27, but Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has canceled that meeting over the controversy.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned the Qur’an burning, but told Reuters, “We have a saying in this country – something can be lawful but awful. I think in this case, what we’ve seen in the context of Sweden falls into that category.”

A Turkish mob gathered in front of the Swedish consulate in Istanbul to burn the Swedish flag. Muslims don’t typically take revenge on the Bible for desecration of their holy book, since they believe in the biblical prophets along with John the Baptist and Jesus…..

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, abandoning their long traditions of neutrality. Since admission to the organization requires the assent of all NATO members, and since Turkey joined NATO in 1952, Erdogan immediately began attempting to use Turkey’s vote as a bargaining chip. He sought to make the two countries back down from their generally sympathetic stance toward Syrian Kurds, the territory of which Erdogan invaded with Trump’s blessing. The two had also given political asylum to Kurdish activists who had escaped Turkey.

Kurdish-speakers exist in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Caucasus. The four countries where they are resident fear Kurdish nationalism and separatism and have repressed nationalist Kurds. Only Iraq has granted the Kurds a special status, of a Kurdistan Regional Government, within the Iraqi state, though in 2017 Kurds were prevented from seceding by the Iraqi army. There are three dialects of Kurdish, however, and Kurds are not automatically a nation because of their language. Turkish political scientists argue that the large Kurdish population of Turkey largely votes the same way their Turkish neighbors do, and separatism is probably a minority sentiment. After all, Turkey is a relatively prosperous country and a member of the G-20, whereas a Kurdistan in southeast Anatolia would be a poor, agricultural, backward country with few resources….

The Biden administration seems confident that Erdogan will eventually acquiesce in Swedish and Finnish membership in NATO, because the country wants to buy billions of dollars worth of high-tech F-16 fighter planes and the US may stall that deal until Ankara plays ball on NATO expansion.

https://www.juancole.com/2023/01/president-application-stockholm.html
 

HEADLINES

 The Journal of America Team:

 Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott

Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab