BRUSSELS — Spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied last month to join NATO, anticipating swift and smooth entry into the alliance. Instead they are in a bind, their path blocked by the unpredictable Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
With NATO’s annual summit beginning on June 29 in Madrid, their expectations to be greeted as fast-track applicants are quickly fading, after Mr. Erdogan backtracked on earlier promises not to put obstacles in their way. Ibrahim Kalin, Mr. Erdogan’s main foreign-policy spokesman, says there is no schedule for their acceptance, and has even talked of a delay of a year.
Finland is especially frustrated, mindful of its 830 miles of border with Russia. After the Feb. 24 invasion, Finland moved quickly to prepare its application, and Finnish diplomats, according to Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, checked with all 30 NATO members in advance and got rapid green lights from them all. That included an assurance from Mr. Erdogan himself, Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, has said.
NATO was so confident that the invitation to both countries would go smoothly that it choreographed a series of events around a vote accepting the applications in May, which the alliance had to cancel when Turkey suddenly objected.
Mr. Erdogan has made numerous demands, mostly centering on nationalist issues with domestic impact, like Kurdish separatism and terrorism, and the extradition of some followers of an exiled opposition leader, Fethullah Gulen. Mr. Erdogan blames Mr. Gullen, who lives in the United States, for a failed coup attempt against him in 2016.
Turkey wants both Finland and Sweden to strengthen their antiterrorism laws; to extradite particular people, including a number of Kurdish journalists; and to eliminate an informal embargo on arms sales to Turkey, imposed after Turkey’s military intervention in northern Syria in 2019.
Finns are deeply frustrated but the government counsels patience, said Mr. Haavisto in an interview.
“The very same terrorist legislation is almost in all NATO countries,” he said, and “we all condemn the P.K.K.,” the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group operating in Turkey and Iraq that the European Union and the United States have labeled a terrorist organization.
“So we feel that the pressure is also not only so much against Finland and Sweden, but against some other NATO countries on this issue,” he added.
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NATO countries should have similar criteria for all states, he said, “because otherwise we come to the situation where different NATO member states would put different criteria to applicants, and I would guess that would end up in chaos.”
On Monday, there was the first meeting in several weeks of Swedish, Finnish and Turkish officials under the auspices of NATO, but the results were minimal. “We don’t see ourselves limited by any timetable,” Mr. Kalin said afterward. “The speed, scope of this process depends on these nations’ manner and speed of meeting our expectations.”
Most of those demands have to do with Sweden and its longstanding sympathy for Kurdish refugees and the Kurdish desire for autonomy, which Turkey regards as a threat to its own sovereignty. While the West condemns the P.K.K., it has relied heavily on a Syrian Kurdish offshoot in the fight against the Islamic State. And Turkish Kurdish leaders long ago abandoned talk of independence to concentrate on autonomy and increased rights for Turkish Kurds.
Mr. Erdogan is facing elections next June, and his popularity is slipping along with the Turkish economy. The Kurdish issue is an important one in Turkey and he is playing on nationalist sentiment now, while suppressing political dissent and independent journalism.
In an interview on Swedish television, a former NATO official, Stephanie Babst, said that Mr. Erdogan’s real agenda is domestic. “Primarily this is a message toward his electoral base at home,” she said. “He has an election ahead of him. The economic situation in Turkey is pretty gruesome and so he wants to demonstrate leadership. He wants to demonstrate that he is a heard leader and so he is, I am afraid to say, using Sweden and Finland in order to get his strategic messages across.”
NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, has been careful publicly to say that every NATO member has the right to express its concerns, that Turkish terrorism concerns are “legitimate” and must be heard and responded to, and that he is confident that Finland and Sweden will become members, even if not by the Madrid summit.
But Mr. Haavisto, while preaching patience and a willingness to allay Turkey’s concerns, also notes that Mr. Erdogan is annoying his allies at a time of war, when the security of Europe is in question.
“I have to say the pressure is mounting among the other E.U. members, or other NATO member states, that they would like to see this process going smoothly or rapidly,” he said. “Speculation that there could be a one-year delay to after the Turkish elections and others would be a big disappointment for many NATO countries as well, let alone for Finland and Sweden.”
There is popular frustration among Finns, but it is aimed less at their leaders than at Turkey, said Charly Salonius-Pasternak of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
“There is a sense that this was supposed to be easy and therefore there’s frustration, that is definitely visible,” he said. “People understand Turkey played a double game.”
There is also some irritation with Sweden, where a minority Social Democratic government was slow to follow Finland’s lead and is wary of offending its supporters ahead of elections in September by giving in to Turkish demands. Party members have a long history of supporting military nonalignment and underdog political movements, and many regard Mr. Erdogan as an authoritarian who tramples democratic rights.
“There was an expectation in Finland that Sweden can put aside party political issues and the coming elections for national security,” Mr. Salonius-Pasternak said. “But it’s quite clear that party politics is back.”
Some in Finland fear that going “hand-in-hand” with Sweden will turn out to be counterproductive, he said, but Mr. Niinisto and Mr. Haavisto both reject that view, citing the long security alliance between the two countries and their importance to enhancing NATO’s security in the north and the Baltic Sea.
Mr. Haavisto also notes that Sweden’s Social Democrats have gone up in the opinion polls since the decision to join Finland and apply for NATO membership.
The United States publicly backs the membership of Sweden and Finland, and Mr. Haavisto has regularly been in contact with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, officials in the White House and key senators. Congress, too, has been supportive, with the Senate already preparing hearings for an eventual ratification vote once the problems with Turkey are resolved.
The legislatures of all NATO countries must ratify amendments to the founding treaty to admit new members, a process that could take up to a year.
But Mr. Haavisto says Finland and Sweden have received solid assurances that individual NATO countries will come to their aid in the interim, if necessary, including the United States, France, Britain and Germany. “So we feeling safe,” he said. “Even at this moment there is no imminent risk to our security.”
“In this time of waiting,” he said, he recommended to friends that they read Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.”
“I started it and I hope that when I’m done with it,” he said, Finland and Sweden will be members of NATO.
Johanna Lemola contributed reporting from Helsinki, and Christina Anderson from Stockholm.
