2023-11-28 06:30:17
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Chancellery in Berlin, November 17, 2023. TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
The scene dates back to July, just hours before the opening of the annual NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. All smiles, the Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, announces to everyone’s surprise that the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has just agreed to lift his opposition to Sweden’s candidacy for the Atlantic Alliance. The Norwegian diplomat added that this is a day “historical”immediately applauded by the American president, Joe Biden, who greets “diplomacy, courage and leadership” from its Ankara counterpart.
Two days later, at the end of the summit, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will specify that“in the fall, when the work of the legislature resumes, the speaker of Parliament [turc] will put the Stockholm accession protocol to the vote »before adding: “We want this process to end as quickly as possible. »
The months have passed and the observation is clear: Turkey has still not ratified Sweden’s accession and the time is very unclear as to the possibility that Ankara will keep its promise. The Turkish president did send the memorandum of understanding to Parliament at the end of October. But the Foreign Affairs Committee, largely dominated by the head of state’s party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), adjourned, on November 16, the debates on the text to a later date, without further precision.
Read also: Article reserved for our NATO subscribers: Erdogan places himself at the center of the diplomatic game
No explanation has really been put forward. It had barely become known that a motion from AKP deputies had been tabled, according to which negotiations with Stockholm were not “not mature enough”. Committee Chairman Fuat Oktay later told reporters that the Swedish ambassador could be invited to the next session to provide additional information on his country’s measures to address Turkey’s security concerns. . And then, nothing more.
The only certainty is that the authorities in Ankara warned the Atlantic Alliance a few days ago that the vote will not take place before the meeting of NATO foreign ministers, scheduled for Brussels on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 november.
“Distrust, disagreements and conflicting interests”
A strange situation than that of Turkey, a NATO country among others, in principle, but which seems to deliberately want to remind, on every occasion, that it is a difficult and indocile ally, anxious to indefinitely maximize its interests or its gains, even if it means revealing its own contradictions and exhausting the “strategic patience” of the Alliance.
You have 75% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#Recep #Tayyip #Erdogan #cumbersome #ally