Negotiations with Turkey on Sweden’s NATO accession were complicated enough beforehand. The Swedish government now suspects that, in addition to the demands of Turkish President Erdogan, there is also Russian influence.
The Swedish Minister for Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, said this at a press conference in Stockholm. State and semi-state actors, including from Russia, are said to be behind it. In this way, the wrong impression is deliberately being spread that Sweden, as a state, is responsible for the burning of the Quran. The actions came from individuals who often had only a very weak connection to Sweden, said the minister. “We see these events being reported in a completely incorrect way in the information environment with the aim, and sometimes outright incitement, to harm Sweden and Swedish interests,” Bohlin said.
The influence campaigns involve both state actors and religious leaders, who are closely following Swedish media, the psychological defense agency’s communications chief, Mikael Östlund, said at a press conference. “They are good at, for example, directly exploiting and directly spreading the desecration of the Quran. They are also good at following the information environment and directly reporting headlines about allowing the Quran to be burned,” Östlund said.
Russia is using these opportunities to promote its agenda in the Moscow-controlled media and TV channels. This aims to split the West and create increased tension and polarization in Sweden, as well as making it more difficult for the country to join NATO. At least one million publications on Sweden have been registered since the Quran was burned at the end of June, Östlund said. The June incident was not the first desecration in Sweden this year.
In addition, there is now an alleged bribery affair in which the family of the Turkish president is said to be involved. Reuters news agency reported that the Swedish-US company Dignita Systems would be trying to influence the Turkish government by paying millions to two institutes on whose board the Turkish president’s son Bilal Erdogan sits. The company wanted to improve its market opportunities in Turkey, reports Reuters, citing company documents, e-mails and a complaint. The latter is currently being examined by prosecutors in Sweden and the United States. A formal investigation has not yet been initiated. It is also interesting that Dignita Systems employees involved seemed to think that the president’s son was the right addressee for their efforts. The timing of the publication also raises questions.
In Stockholm there is talk of “explosives” in view of the affair. From the Swedish point of view, the matter is very unpleasant and could make the already difficult approach even more difficult. At the end of the day, it looked as if things were moving. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg initially said that before the summit in July, NATO would promote Sweden’s accession to the military alliance at a meeting in Brussels attended by high-ranking representatives. Foreign ministers, heads of intelligence services and national security advisers would come together to do this. Erdogan also agreed to the meeting. However, no concrete solutions were found either at the Brussels meeting or at the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.
The disillusionment in Sweden about Ankara’s course is immense. Sweden has given up its non-aligned status after centuries. At the beginning of April, Finland joined NATO, Sweden still has to wait, it is no longer neutral, but it is not yet protected either. In Sweden’s press, it was recently commented that Erdogan had already been accommodated too far at the “bazaar” for membership, that the matter was no longer in one’s own hands. The government, in turn, limited itself to pointing out that the points agreed in the trilateral memorandum with Turkey and Finland had been fulfilled: Arms exports to Turkey were permitted again, extraditions to Ankara were checked and terror legislation was also tightened. All of this is not enough for Türkiye so far.
The process was repeatedly torpedoed: by a hanging Erdogan doll in front of Stockholm’s city hall, by burning of the Quran and subsequent verdicts that lifted the ban on burning the script by the police, most recently by an incident in early June when demonstrators in Stockholm after the anti-terror law came into force and Gothenburg PKK flags were waving.
In Sweden, this is allowed, as is waving IS flags; the country probably has the most far-reaching rights in the area of freedom of assembly and expression in the world. From the Swedish point of view, there can be no rapprochement with Ankara here. “It would be political suicide for a Swedish government to restrict freedom of speech and assembly to accommodate an autocratic president like Erdogan,” says one Swedish commentator. From his point of view, the NATO process can no longer be influenced by Stockholm.
After the Turkish presidential election on May 28, the US and other NATO members increased the pressure on Ankara. During the election campaign, Erdogan used the issue to present himself as a strong leader who defied the West. That went down well with the voters. Originally, many observers assumed that the president would be able to more easily approve Sweden’s accession after his re-election. But now, in a telephone conversation with the political head of NATO, Stoltenberg, Erdogan described the changed Swedish terror legislation as “meaningless” as long as supporters of the PKK, also classified as a terrorist organization by the EU, is allowed to organize demonstrations in the country. Erdogan seems determined to secure further concessions. At the same time, he puts himself in a position from which it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a face-saving way out.
Turkey is demanding the extradition of PKK members from Sweden. The Supreme Court in Stockholm recently approved the extradition of a suspected drug criminal who expressed support for the PKK. But his name was apparently not on the list of those to be extradited that Ankara had presented to Stockholm.
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