Compared to other countries on Europe’s racism map, Sweden is dark red in color. This means that racism in the country is widespread, and has reached dangerous and aggressive heights. The extreme right racist party Sweden Democrats, with its roots in neo-Nazism, entered parliament with 18 percent of votes in the 2018 general elections. In other words, this is an extremely dangerous atmosphere where neo-Nazis can run for office.
Stram Kurs party leader, racist Ramus Paludan, who insulted the Holy Qur’an the other day in front of the Turkish Embassy, is a product of this toxic atmosphere as well. In fact, this provocation is not Paludan’s first. Paludan, who came within an inch of entering parliament in 2019 with 1.8 percent of votes, burned the Qur’an exactly 19 times last year. As a matter of fact, he realized these despicable attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Upon these provocations, Muslims in the country took to the streets and demonstrated for days. Add to this that Paludan is a pedophile pervert who abuses male children aged 13 years and under and that he lives under police protection.
Swedish authorities are saying they cannot prevent such hate speech acts due to freedom of speech. This is a major contradiction because according to Swedish laws, hate speech is not considered within the scope of crime and freedom of speech. We understand this from the prison sentence Paludan got in 2020 for racism. Hate speech is identified as a crime in the law, but it is not implemented in most cases. We know that it was not implemented especially in the provocation in front of the Turkish Embassy.
Let’s look at how this provocation reflects on the NATO negotiations between Türkiye, Sweden, and Finland. I wrote previously that Sweden is unwilling to fulfill Türkiye’s expectations. Hence Ankara was not anticipating any development on this subject until the elections.
The provocative demonstration in front of the embassy was the last straw. Swedish officials were warned a day prior to the demonstration via diplomatic channels to prevent the provocation. We know that Stockholm’s response, “We have freedom of speech in our country, don’t take that lunatic seriously,”despite the warning further angered Ankara. As a result, Ankara showed strong reaction and closed the Sweden case – with the intention of keeping it closed for a long time.
The bilateral meetings planned to be held with Sweden were cancelled within this scope. This was followed by a statement from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: “They must not expect benevolence from us regarding their NATO membership bid.”
What the future will present remains unknown, but we can foresee that Ankara will give the red light for Sweden’s NATO membership, and the green light for Finland. Ankara would not only be teaching a lesson to Sweden with this move, but also showing that it is not against NATO’s expansion. Furthermore, we know that Finland is evaluating this option as well. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto’s statement, “It is best to continue talks with Türkiye once the atmosphere has calmed down. We will not consider NATO membership without Sweden,” made an impact, but the minister said something else as well. Haavisto’s emphasis that they may review their strategy for joining NATO at the same time with Sweden is striking.
US CORNERED
It is inevitable for the developments to affect Turkish-American relations as well. As known, Türkiye’s F-16 negotiations with the U.S. are ongoing. Even if the Joe Biden administration supports selling the F-16s to Türkiye, Congress will have the final say. Congress is on a razor-edge since the last elections. Hence, the White House is having difficulty with respect to pressuring Congress. Washington says, “Approve the two countries’ NATO membership to convince Congress, this will have a positive impact.” They are stating this not as a condition but as a wish. However, this is very difficult at the current state. The White House must find other arguments to convince Congress.
Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çauşoğlu visited Washington recently and met with his U.S. counterpart Anthony Blinken. Statements implied that the U.S. made certain proposals for cooperation in Syria. Following this exciting development, I sought what this proposal entailed. According to the information I obtained, the new proposal fails to go beyond, “Let’s relaunch Syria negotiations with Ankara, and start a new process.” The objective, scope, and date is unknown. Efforts towards affecting the dialogue traffic between Ankara, Moscow, and Damascus is noticeable. Meanwhile, Ankara has a deep sense of distrust towards the U.S. regarding Syria. It awaits concrete steps to be taken against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in order to start a new process.
