Turkey’s signals mixed on NATO

WASHINGTON — The United States struggled Wednesday to get clarity from Turkey over the severity of its opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took an increasingly tough line against their membership bids.

In a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the United Nations, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu offered mixed signals. He affirmed his country’s support for NATO’s “open-door” policy and its understanding of Finland and Sweden’s desire to join the alliance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But he also repeated Erdogan’s demands that Turkey’s security concerns about the candidate nations be addressed.

“Turkey has been supporting the open-door policy of NATO even before this war,” he said. “But with regard to these candidate countries, we have also legitimate security concerns that they have been supporting terrorist organizations and there are also export restrictions on defense products,” he said.

“We understand their security concerns but Turkey’s security concerns should be also met and this is one issue that we should continue discussing with friends and allies, including the United States,” Cavusoglu said.

Later, speaking to Turkish journalists, Cavusoglu stepped up his criticism, accusing Sweden of not just backing groups linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, but also providing arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom Turkey views as an extension of the militant group.

“Everyone says that Turkey’s concerns must be met, but this must not just be with words, it must be implemented,” he said.

His remarks came as U.S. officials try to determine how serious the often mercurial Erdogan is about the matter and what it might take to get him to back down. In the meantime, U.S. officials have been essentially ignoring Erdogan’s comments in their public statements.

Without acknowledging Erdogan’s complaints about Finland and Sweden, Blinken stressed that Washington would work to ensure the NATO expansion process is successful.

“Today we had Finland and Sweden submit their applications and this, of course, is a process and we will work through that process as allies and partners,” Blinken said.