Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11. PHOTO NICOLAS MAETERLINCK/Belga/AFP Share
Last minute telephone exchanges with US President Joe Biden and a final meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as with the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, ended up making the Turkish president relent. On Monday July 10, on the sidelines of the Vilnius summit, Turkey lifted its veto on Sweden’s entry into the Atlantic Alliance.
Requested by Stockholm following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, entry into NATO has so far been blocked by Ankara, which accused the country of harboring “terrorists” on its soil, a term used by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to designate sympathizers of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK ) – who has been leading a bloody guerrilla war in Turkey since 1984 – or relatives of the brotherhood of Imam Fethullah Gülen, a former ally who has become the Turkish president’s pet peeve.
Under pressure from Turkey, Stockholm had lifted the embargo on arms exports and passed an anti-terrorist law – forcing him to modify his Constitution – unofficially targeting members and sympathizers of the PKK.
But the Turkish president upped the ante and lasted suspense for more than a year. Last
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