Turkey to accept Sweden in NATO if US sells F-16s
Turkey will say yes to Sweden’s NATO bid if the US keeps its promise to sell F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, President Erdogan said on Tuesday, even though he had previously claimed that the sale of the fighter jets had nothing to do with membership.
Erdogan’s surprising statement comes days after a corruption scandal involving a senior US senator – who has been opposing selling F-16 jet fighters to Turkey – erupted.
Euractiv had reported already in early July that the modernisation and selling of US F-16 jet fighters’ fleet was on Ankara’s agenda in order to greenlight Sweden’s NATO accession.
Although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had previously claimed that the sale of the fighter jets had nothing to do with Sweden’s NATO membership and Ankara’s approval, it appears this was not the case.
“If the US keeps its promises, our parliament will keep its promises,” Erdogan told reporters on Tuesday as he returned from a visit to Azerbaijan, where he met with the country’s President, Ilham Aliyev.
Erdogan added that Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed Sweden’s NATO bid during last week’s UN meeting in New York.
That same day, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told SVT Nyheter that he still expected Sweden to become a NATO member when the Turkish parliament convenes this autumn. He also believed he would have an opportunity to speak with Erdogan.
Since Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, Turkey has been a staunch opponent of Stockholm’s aspirations to join the alliance, using all possible means to slow down and benefit from the process.
A US development favouring Ankara
Meanwhile, in the US, an alleged corruption scandal against New Jersey Senator and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez is considered a game changer for the F-16 jet fighters’ case.
CNN reported that Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, are accused of accepting “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes” in exchange for the senator’s influence.
The case forced Menendez to step down from the presidency of the foreign committee, and pressure by his colleagues in the Democratic party to resign as a senator is mounting. For his part, Menendez refuses to do so and maintains his innocence.
Menendez has been a fierce opponent of the sale of F-16 to Turkey and has asked for security guarantees toward Greece, also a NATO member.
Although the situation has now de-escalated, in the recent past, Greece and Turkey faced a fragile situation in the Aegean Sea due to disputes over maritime borders.
Athens is accusing Ankara of daily violations of its airspace. Yet, the Greek government is negotiating the purchase of F-35 jet fighters to counterbalance the F-16 aircraft to Turkey.
Menendez’s departure from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has caused Athens headaches, considering that a pro-Greek voice has been lost.
Orbán: The last hurdle
But now that Sweden’s NATO bid is well on its way to being ratified by the Turkish parliament, one final hurdle remains Hungary.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told lawmakers that “nothing threatens Sweden’s security” and that Hungary was in “no hurry” to ratify its NATO accession while speaking at the opening of the autumn session of the Hungarian parliament.
He added that the criticism from Sweden and Swedish politicians over the erosion of the rule of law contributed to Hungary’s delay – of more than a year – in voting to expand NATO.
Orbán’s statement came after senior Hungarian officials recently suggested that Sweden’s ratification might not even be on the parliamentary agenda during the autumn session.
(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com – Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos)
