Defense alliance: Nouripour: Türkiye must end NATO blockade of Sweden

defensive alliance
Nouripour: Türkiye must end NATO blockade of Sweden

“The Turkish government’s course has recently deepened the rifts between Turkey and the European Union,” says Omid Nouripour, federal chairman of Alliance 90/The Greens. photo

© Jonas Walzberg/dpa

After Finland, Sweden now also wants to be admitted to NATO – but Turkey under Erdogan is vehemently blocking the project. How does his re-election affect the accession negotiations?

After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s election victory, Green Party leader Omid Nouripour called on the government in Ankara to end the blockade on Sweden’s accession to NATO.

“The course of the Turkish government has recently deepened the rifts between Turkey and the European Union and deterred investors from the West, who the country urgently needs,” Nouripour told the “Rheinische Post”. He hopes for more reliability in the relationship. “It has to start with the end of the blockade on Sweden’s accession to NATO.” The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, Michael Roth, also demands this. The SPD politician told the editorial network Germany (RND) that Erdogan would have to give up his veto before the NATO summit in July.

Against the background of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Sweden applied together with Finland a year ago to be included in the western defense alliance. All Member States must agree to the application. Erdogan’s Turkey has long blocked Sweden’s membership. Erdogan won a runoff against his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Sunday.

FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai called for an end to the EU accession process. “This Turkish government is light years away from Europe,” he told RND. The voting behavior of some Turks in Germany is also disappointing. It leaves behind “many integration-political questions”. Turkey has been on an authoritarian course for years. “Human and civil rights are being systematically restricted and the economic situation is desolate. This course will continue.”

The CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen also expects a further economic decline in Turkey. “The whole of Turkey will pay dearly for Erdogan’s manipulated election victory with the inevitable further economic decline,” Röttgen told the “Rheinische Post”. “This is likely to tempt Erdogan to further radicalize at home and to become even more unpredictable in foreign policy from the Western perspective.”

dpa

source site-3