“We encourage our allies, Türkiye and Hungary, to ratify Sweden’s accession as soon as possible,” Austin later said at a joint press conference with Jonson in front of the Visby-class corvette Härnösand, a new class of ships designed for stealth and countering undersea mines and submarines. “Sweden’s membership in NATO is going to mean a stronger alliance and a more secure Europe.”
There are other signs the logjam is breaking. After Finland officially joined NATO, the U.S. this week approved Turkey’s request to purchase upgrades for its existing fleet of American-made F-16 fighter jets. Ankara has rejected any link between its request for F-16s and NATO votes. A larger $20 billion deal to sell 40 F-16s to Turkey is still stalled in Congress.
“It’s important to all of us that they make the decision sooner rather than later, because we look forward to having a very capable Sweden sitting at the desk beside us in Vilnius,” Austin said.
Turkey and Hungary ratified Finland’s membership bid in March — but left Sweden hanging. The decision, officials and experts say, is linked to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strategy ahead of elections scheduled for May 14.
Helsinki and Stockholm have both introduced policy changes to address Turkish concerns on support for Kurdish groups and limitations on arms exports.
But Ankara raised more qualms with Sweden than Finland — and tensions with Stockholm escalated following a Quran burning at a protest this year. At the same time, there is speculation that Erdoğan is using the holdup as a negotiating chip in other discussions with allies.
Turkish officials insist that they support NATO expansion in principle and will ratify Sweden’s bid as soon as Ankara determines that Stockholm has met its commitments under a trilateral deal reached between Turkey, Sweden and Finland last summer.
“We have joined all the other allies in inviting Sweden and Finland to become a member of this alliance in Madrid,” said one Turkish official who, like others for this story, was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters or to speak ahead of official announcements. “That showed our commitment to open door policy.”
At NATO, meanwhile, officials still hold out hope that Turkey’s parliament will sign off on Sweden’s bid ahead of the alliance’s planned July leaders’ summit — and that Hungary will quickly ratify once Ankara signals that it will move.
“My aim remains that after the Turkish elections, but before the Vilnius summit, we can also have the ratification of Sweden,” Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told POLITICO last month.
Until the issue is resolved, Austin is eager to show support for the Nordic country located on NATO’s northern flank.
“The Sweden trip is in order to make very clear U.S. support for Sweden’s application for membership in NATO, to reassure not just the government but the people of Sweden that the United States strongly supports Sweden’s accession to NATO,” a senior Defense Department official said.
A Swedish official called the secretary’s visit “very significant” due to both the country’s ongoing NATO bid and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
Both Sweden and Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia, have long championed a neutral military and foreign policy. But when Russia invaded Ukraine last year, public opinion shifted almost overnight toward support for NATO members.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything,” Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, wrote last week.
Austin and his delegation, which included Ambassador to Sweden Erik Ramanathan and Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith, met with Jonson and Gen. Micael Bydén at the Muskö base on Wednesday. After their meeting, they visited the Maritime Operations Center.
The delegation then took the Härnösand across the Stockholm archipelago to Berga Naval Base. Austin watched from the deck as two combats boats filled with Swedish marines conducted a mock amphibious landing on one of the islands in the archipelago. Two Swedish fighter jets flew overhead.
The U.S. regularly exercises with Sweden in the sea and air in the Baltic region. Once Sweden is a member of NATO, the country’s “extraordinary advanced military capabilities” will “significantly enhance NATO’s military capability, particularly in the north,” the senior DoD official said.
Russia has a significant presence in the Baltic Sea, including a fleet of stealthy submarines that patrol the northern waters. However, the official said they were not aware of any heightened risk right now in the region “beyond the normal Russian presence and operations.”
Sweden has provided 1.9 billion euros in support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia, including 1.5 billion euros in military aid. In recent months, the U.S. has ramped up military cooperation with Sweden, including increasing the number of ship and bomber task force visits, as well as high-level engagements.
“Sweden feels more secure now after we became invited to NATO,” Jonson said.
Lili Bayer contributed to this report from Brussels.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Islamabad: Sweden has announced closing its embassy in Pakistan “indefinitely” due to the prevailing “security situation” in the crisis-hit country’s capital.
The embassy did not elaborate on the nature of the threat, but Pakistan’s political situation is getting worse amid growing tension between the government and the Supreme Court.
Pakistan’s Supreme Court was hearing a petition to annul a bill aiming at curbing the powers of the chief justice to form panels of his choice for different cases.
“Due to the current security situation in Islamabad, the Embassy of Sweden is closed for visitors. The Migration Section is not, at the moment, able to handle requests of any kind,” a notice on the embassy’s website reads.
“Also, we cannot send any documents to our consulates, Gerry s, or to your home address. We understand that this will cause inconvenience. However, the safety of our applicants and staff members is of the highest priority,” it said.
The notice also stated that any questions regarding the reopening of the mission cannot be answered at the moment.
Many believe the decision was linked to the recent incident of the burning of the Quran in Sweden.
A Danish-Swedish far-right extremist burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21 under the protection of Swedish police, drawing condemnation from Muslims worldwide.
The political leaders of Pakistan, including Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and ousted premier Imran Khan, had condemned the incident.
“No words are enough to adequately condemn the abhorrable act of desecration of the Holy Quran by a right-wing extremist in Sweden. The garb of the freedom of expression cannot be used to hurt the religious emotions of 1.5 billion Muslims across the world. This is unacceptable,” Sharif had tweeted.
China temporarily closed down the consular section of its embassy in Pakistan in February due to “technical issues”, days after advising Chinese citizens in this country to be cautious due to the deteriorating security situation.
For Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, next month’s election is of massive historical significance.
It falls 100 years after the foundation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular republic and, if Erdoğan wins, he will be empowered to put even more of his stamp on the trajectory of a geostrategic heavyweight of 85 million people. The fear in the West is that he will see this as his moment to push toward an increasingly religiously conservative model, characterized by regional confrontationalism, with greater political powers centered around himself.
The election will weigh heavily on security in Europe and the Middle East. Who is elected stands to define: Turkey’s role in the NATO alliance; its relationship with the U.S., the EU and Russia; migration policy; Ankara’s role in the war in Ukraine; and how it handles tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The May 14 vote is expected to be the most hotly contested race in Erdoğan’s 20-year rule — as the country grapples with years of economic mismanagement and the fallout from a devastating earthquake.
He will face an opposition aligned behind Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, nicknamed the “Turkish Gandhi,” who is promising big changes. Polls suggest Kılıçdaroğlu has eked out a lead, but Erdoğan is a hardened election campaigner, with the full might of the state and its institutions at his back.
“There will be a change from an authoritarian single-man rule, towards a kind of a teamwork, which is a much more democratic process,” Ünal Çeviköz, chief foreign policy adviser to Kılıçdaroğlu told POLITICO. “Kılıçdaroğlu will be the maestro of that team.”
Here are the key foreign policy topics in play in the vote:
EU and Turkish accession talks
Turkey’s opposition is confident it can unfreeze European Union accession talks — at a standstill since 2018 over the country’s democratic backsliding — by introducing liberalizing reforms in terms of rule of law, media freedoms and depoliticization of the judiciary.
The opposition camp also promises to implement European Court of Human Rights decisions calling for the release of two of Erdoğan’s best-known jailed opponents: the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party Selahattin Demirtaş and human rights defender Osman Kavala.
“This will simply give the message to all our allies, and all the European countries, that Turkey is back on track to democracy,” Çeviköz said.
Even under a new administration, however, the task of reopening the talks on Turkey’s EU accession is tricky.
Turkey’s opposition is aligned behind Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, nicknamed the “Turkish Gandhi” | Burak Kara/Getty Images
Anti-Western feeling in Turkey is very strong across the political spectrum, argued Wolfango Piccoli, co-founder of risk analysis company Teneo.
“Foreign policy will depend on the coherence of the coalition,” he said. “This is a coalition of parties who have nothing in common apart from the desire to get rid of Erdoğan. They’ve got a very different agenda, and this will have an impact in foreign policy.”
“The relationship is largely comatose, and has been for some time, so, they will keep it on life support,” he said, adding that any new government would have so many internal problems to deal with that its primary focus would be domestic.
Europe also seems unprepared to handle a new Turkey, with a group of countries — most prominently France and Austria — being particularly opposed to the idea of rekindling ties.
“They are used to the idea of a non-aligned Turkey, that has departed from EU norms and values and is doing its own course,” said Aslı Aydıntaşbaş a visiting fellow at Brookings. “If the opposition forms a government, it will seek a European identity and we don’t know Europe’s answer to that; whether it could be accession or a new security framework that includes Turkey.”
“Obviously the erosion of trust has been mutual,” said former Turkish diplomat Sinan Ülgen, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank, arguing that despite reticence about Turkish accession, there are other areas where a complementary and mutually beneficiary framework could be built, like the customs union, visa liberalization, cooperation on climate, security and defense, and the migration agreement.
The opposition will indeed seek to revisit the 2016 agreement with the EU on migration, Çeviköz said.
“Our migration policy has to be coordinated with the EU,” he said. “Many countries in Europe see Turkey as a kind of a pool, where migrants coming from the east can be contained and this is something that Turkey, of course cannot accept,” he said but added. “This doesn’t mean that Turkey should open its borders and make the migrants flow into Europe. But we need to coordinate and develop a common migration policy.”
NATO and the US
After initially imposing a veto, Turkey finally gave the green light to Finland’s NATO membership on March 30.
But the opposition is also pledging to go further and end the Turkish veto on Sweden, saying that this would be possible by the alliance’s annual gathering on July 11. “If you carry your bilateral problems into a multilateral organization, such as NATO, then you are creating a kind of a polarization with all the other members of NATO with your country,” Çeviköz said.
A protester pushes a cart with a RRecep Tayyip Erdoğan doll during an anti-NATO and anti-Turkey demonstration in Sweden | Jonas Gratzer/Getty Images
A reelected Erdoğan could also feel sufficiently empowered to let Sweden in, many insiders argue. NATO allies did, after all, play a significant role in earthquake aid. Turkish presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın says that the door is not closed to Sweden, but insists the onus is on Stockholm to determine how things proceed.
Turkey’s military relationship with the U.S. soured sharply in 2019 when Ankara purchased the Russian-made S-400 missile system, a move the U.S. said would put NATO aircraft flying over Turkey at risk. In response, the U.S. kicked Ankara out of the F-35 jet fighter program and slapped sanctions on the Turkish defense industry.
A meeting in late March between Kılıçdaroğlu and the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara Jeff Flake infuriated Erdoğan, who saw it as an intervention in the elections and pledged to “close the door” to the U.S. envoy. “We need to teach the United States a lesson in this elections,” the irate president told voters.
In its policy platform, the opposition makes a clear reference to its desire to return to the F-35 program.
Russia and the war in Ukraine
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Turkey presented itself as a middleman. It continues to supply weapons — most significantly Bayraktar drones — to Ukraine, while refusing to sanction Russia. It has also brokered a U.N. deal that allows Ukrainian grain exports to pass through the blockaded Black Sea.
Highlighting his strategic high-wire act on Russia, after green-lighting Finland’s NATO accession and hinting Sweden could also follow, Erdoğan is now suggesting that Turkey could be the first NATO member to host Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Maybe there is a possibility” that Putin may travel to Turkey on April 27 for the inauguration of the country’s first nuclear power reactor built by Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom, he said.
Çeviköz said that under Kılıçdaroğlu’s leadership, Turkey would be willing to continue to act as a mediator and extend the grain deal, but would place more stress on Ankara’s status as a NATO member.
“We will simply emphasize the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO, and in our discussions with Russia, we will certainly look for a relationship among equals, but we will also remind Russia that Turkey is a member of NATO,” he said.
Turkey’s relationship with Russia has become very much driven by the relationship between Putin and Erdoğan and this needs to change, Ülgen argued.
Turkey brokered a U.N. deal that allows Ukrainian grain exports to pass through the blockaded Black Sea | Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images
“No other Turkish leader would have the same type of relationship with Putin, it would be more distant,” he said. “It does not mean that Turkey would align itself with the sanctions; it would not. But nonetheless, the relationship would be more transparent.”
Syria and migration
The role of Turkey in Syria is highly dependent on how it can address the issue of Syrians living in Turkey, the opposition says.
Turkey hosts some 4 million Syrians and many Turks, battling a major cost-of-living crisis, are becoming increasingly hostile. Kılıçdaroğlu has pledged to create opportunities and the conditions for the voluntary return of Syrians.
“Our approach would be to rehabilitate the Syrian economy and to create the conditions for voluntary returns,” Çeviköz said, adding that this would require an international burden-sharing, but also establishing dialogue with Damascus.
Erdoğan is also trying to establish a rapprochement with Syria but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he will only meet the Turkish president when Ankara is ready to completely withdraw its military from northern Syria.
“A new Turkish government will be more eager to essentially shake hands with Assad,” said Ülgen. “But this will remain a thorny issue because there will be conditions attached on the side of Syria to this normalization.”
However, Piccoli from Teneo said voluntary returns of Syrians was “wishful thinking.”
“These are Syrians who have been living in Turkey for more than 10 years, their children have been going to school in Turkey from day one. So, the pledges of sending them back voluntarily, it is very questionable to what extent they can be implemented.”
Greece and the East Med
Turkey has stepped up its aggressive rhetoric against Greece in recent months, with the Erdoğan even warning that a missile could strike Athens.
But the prompt reaction by the Greek government and the Greek community to the recent devastating earthquakes in Turkey and a visit by the Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias created a new backdrop for bilateral relations.
A Turkish drill ship before it leaves for gas exploration | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images
Dendias, along with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, announced that Turkey would vote for Greece in its campaign for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for 2025-26 and that Greece would support the Turkish candidacy for the General Secretariat of the International Maritime Organization.
In another sign of a thaw, Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos and Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi visited Turkey this month, with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar saying he hoped that the Mediterranean and Aegean would be a “sea of friendship” between the two countries. Akar said he expected a moratorium with Greece in military and airforce exercises in the Aegean Sea between June 15 and September 15.
“Both countries are going to have elections, and probably they will have the elections on the same day. So, this will open a new horizon in front of both countries,” Çeviköz said.
“The rapprochement between Turkey and Greece in their bilateral problems [in the Aegean], will facilitate the coordination in addressing the other problems in the eastern Mediterranean, which is a more multilateral format,” he said. Disputes over maritime borders and energy exploration, for example, are common.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, Çeviköz said that it is important for Athens and Ankara not to intervene into the domestic politics of Cyprus and the “two peoples on the island should be given an opportunity to look at their problems bilaterally.”
However, analysts argue that Greece, Cyprus and the EastMed are fundamental for Turkey’s foreign policy and not much will change with another government. The difference will be more one of style.
“The approach to manage those differences will change very much. So, we will not hear aggressive rhetoric like: ‘We will come over one night,’” said Ülgen. “We’ll go back to a more mature, more diplomatic style of managing differences and disputes.”
“The NATO framework will be important, and the U.S. would have to do more in terms of re-establishing the sense of balance in the Aegean,” said Aydıntaşbaş. But, she argued, “you just cannot normalize your relations with Europe or the U.S., unless you’re willing to take that step with Greece.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BRUSSELS — Finland formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday, becoming its 31st member on the same day as NATO’s 74th anniversary.
The country applied to join NATO last May in a foreign policy U-turn prompted by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s entry brings to the alliance a new 1,340-kilometer border with Russia — as well as its own significant military capabilities.
Finland and Sweden initially planned to join the alliance together. But Turkey and Hungary dragged out the ratification process for the two countries, ultimately signing off on Finland’s bid last week but leaving Sweden hanging in the wind.
On Tuesday this week, Turkey and Finland completed the final steps in the process, handing over accession documents to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Standing alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Finnish Foreign Minister PekkaHaavisto at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Blinken declared: “With receipt of this instrument of accession, we can now declare that Finland is the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty.”
The Finnish flag was then raised outside NATO headquarters.
“The era of military nonalignment in our history has come to an end,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said at the accession ceremony, which was attended by senior officials and the alliance’s foreign ministers. “A new era begins,” he continued.
“Finland’s membership,” the president emphasized, “is not targeted against anyone.”
But Niinistö also underscored the importance of Sweden soon joining the alliance.
“Finland’s membership is not complete without that of Sweden. Our persistent efforts for a rapid Swedish membership will continue,” the Finnish leader said.
In his speech, Stoltenberg also made a nod to Stockholm’s ongoing accession bid.
“This has been the fastest accession process in NATO’s modern history,” he said at the ceremony. “I look forward to welcoming Sweden into the alliance as soon as possible.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Finland will formally become a full-fledged NATO ally on Tuesday, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday.
“This is an historic week,” the NATO chief told reporters. “Tomorrow, we will welcome Finland as the 31st member of NATO, making Finland safer and our alliance stronger.”
A ceremony marking Finland’s accession is set to take place Tuesday afternoon.
“We will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at the NATO headquarters,” Stoltenberg said, adding: “It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security, and for NATO as a whole.”
The move comes after Hungary and Turkey ratified Finland’s membership bid last week, removing the last hurdles to Helsinki’s accession.
Sweden’s membership aspiration, however, remains in limbo as Budapest and Ankara continue to withhold support.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Stoltenberg reiterated that he believes Stockholm is still on its way to ultimately joining the alliance as well.
“All allies,” he said, “agree that Sweden’s accession should be completed quickly.”
At their meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, ministers will discuss the alliance’s defense spending goals and future relationship with Kyiv.
They will also attend a session of the NATO-Ukraine Commission together with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and meet with partners from Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
In his press conference, the NATO chief also addressed multiple challenges facing the transatlantic alliance, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent announcement that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Putin’s announcement is “part of a pattern of dangerous, reckless nuclear rhetoric” and an effort to use nuclear weapons as “intimidation, coercion to stop NATO allies and partners from supporting Ukraine.”
“We will not be intimidated,” the NATO boss said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland | Heikki Saukkomaa/Lehtikuva/AFP via Getty Images
The alliance “remains vigilant, we monitor very closely what Russia does,” he said. “But so far,” he added, “we haven’t seen any changes in their nuclear posture” that require any change in NATO’s nuclear stance.
In a statement Monday, the Finnish president’s office said that, “Finland will deposit its instrument of accession to the North Atlantic Treaty with the U.S. State Department in Brussels on Tuesday” before the start of NATO foreign ministers’ session.
Sanna Marin, the prime minister when Finland applied to join NATO, suffered defeat in a national election on Sunday. Her Social Democrats finished third, with the center-right National Coalition Party coming out on top.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The Turkish parliament on Thursday unanimously ratified Finland’s accession to NATO, effectively allowing Helsinki to join the military alliance but leaving Sweden out in the cold.
Finland could now become a formal member of NATO within days.
“All 30 NATO members have now ratified Finland’s membership,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistö tweeted. “I want to thank every one of them for their trust and support. Finland will be a strong and capable Ally, committed to the security of the Alliance,” he said.
His country, the president added, “is now ready to join NATO.”
The Turkish vote, occurring minutes before midnight in Ankara, comes after months of delays.
Finland and Sweden initially applied for membership last May, prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And while the two countries were formally invited to join the alliance last summer, both Turkey and Hungary have been stalling on ratifying their memberships.
Ankara has raised concerns about the countries’ support of Kurdish groups and limitations on arms exports. But despite striking a deal with both Helsinki and Stockholm that spurred policy changes, Ankara ultimately decided to greenlight Finland while holding Sweden back.
Hungary’s parliament on Monday also ratified Finland’s membership but like Turkey has yet to schedule a vote on Sweden.
Western officials had hoped that both countries would become full members before a summit of NATO leaders scheduled to take place in Vilnius in July, but it remains uncertain whether Sweden could still become a member before the gathering.
Turkey is set to hold elections in May, fuelling speculation that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is withholding support for Sweden for domestic political reasons and could change his mind at a later stage.
Niinistö, the Finnish president, said in his tweet late Thursday that “we look forward to welcoming Sweden to join us as soon as possible.”
Now that Finland has Turkey’s formal support, only procedural steps are left before Helsinki officially joins NATO.
Finland will soon get a formal invitation from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and then give the U.S. its so-called instrument of accession. The U.S. will then issue a statement that Finland is now part of the North Atlantic Treaty.
The NATO chief welcomed Turkey’s vote.
“This,” Stoltenberg tweeted, “will make the whole NATO family stronger & safer.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
The Hungarian parliament ratified Finland’s NATO membership on Monday, putting Helsinki one step closer to joining the alliance but leaving Sweden waiting in the wings.
Members of Hungary’s parliament voted by a margin of 182 to 6 in favor of Finnish accession.
Helsinki now only needs the Turkish parliament’s approval — expected soon — to become a NATO member.
Hungary’s move comes after repeated delays and political U-turns.
Hungarian officials spent months telling counterparts they had no objections and their parliament was simply busy with other business.
Budapest then changed its narrative last month, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — who has an iron grip over his ruling Fidesz party — arguing the point that some of his legislators had qualms regarding criticism of the state of Hungarian democracy.
Finland and Sweden have been at the forefront of safeguarding democratic standards in Hungary, speaking out on the matter long before many of their counterparts.
But earlier this month — just as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he will support Finland’s NATO membership — the Fidesz position flipped again, with its parliamentary group chair then announcing support for Helsinki’s bid.
Turkey’s parliament is expected to ratify Finnish membership soon. But it is keeping Sweden in limbo, as Turkish officials say they want to see the country implement new anti-terror policies before giving Ankara’s green light.
Following in Turkey’s footsteps, Hungary is now also delaying a decision on Sweden indefinitely — prompting criticism from Orbán’s critics.
Attila Ara-Kovács, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary’s opposition Democratic Coalition, said that Orbán’s moves are part of a strategy to fuel anti-Western attitudes at home.
The government’s aim is “further inciting anti-Western and anti-NATO sentiment within Hungary, especially among Orbán’s fanatical supporters — and besides, of course, to serve Russian interests,” he said.
“This has its consequences,” Ara-Kovács said, adding that “support for the EU and NATO in the country is significantly and constantly decreasing.”
A recent Eurobarometer poll found that 39 percent of Hungarians view the EU positively. A NATO report, published last week, shows that 77 percent of Hungarians would vote to stay in the alliance — compared to 89 percent in Poland and 84 percent in Romania.
But Hungarian officials are adding the spin that they do support Sweden’s NATO membership.
The Swedish government “constantly questioning the state of Hungarian democracy” is “insulting our voters, MPs and the country as a whole,” said Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister’s political director (no relation to the prime minister).
It is “up to the Swedes to make sure that Hungarian MPs’ concerns are addressed,” he tweeted on Sunday. “Our goal,” he added, “is to support Sweden’s NATO accession with a parliamentary majority as broad as possible.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Brussels: Representatives of Sweden, Finland and Turkey held talks in Brussels to discuss progress on fulfilling Turkey’s conditions for agreeing to the Nordic countries’ accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the military bloc said in a statement.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in 2022 but faced objections from NATO-member Turkey on the grounds that the two countries harbour members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), considered a terrorist group by Ankara.
The accession needs a unanimous agreement by all members of NATO.
According to NATO’s statement, “the participants welcomed the progress that had been made” on a three-way deal called the Trilateral Memorandum, struck last year in Madrid, aimed at satisfying Turkey’s complaints, Xinhua news agency reported.
The participants also agreed that rapid ratifications for both Finland and Sweden would be in NATO’s interest, and that their membership would strengthen the bloc, the statement said.
“Finland and Sweden have taken unprecedented steps to address legitimate Turkish security concerns. It is now time for all allies to conclude the ratification process and welcome Finland and Sweden as full members of the alliance ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit in Vilnius,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
As agreed in the Memorandum, there won’t be any arms export restrictions between the parties; they need to significantly enhance counter-terrorism cooperation; and Sweden is now in the process of tightening anti-terrorism legislation, including against the PKK.
The three countries on Thursday agreed to meet again in the same format ahead of the NATO summit in July.
Nearly six months on from the subsea gas pipeline explosions, which sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world in September, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of who blew up Nord Stream.
Some were quick to place the blame squarely at Russia’s door — citing its record of hybrid warfare and a possible motive of intimidation, in the midst of a bitter economic war with Europe over gas supply.
But half a year has passed without any firm evidence for this — or any other explanation — being produced by the ongoing investigations of authorities in three European countries.
Since the day of the attack, four states — Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and the U.K. — have been publicly blamed for the explosions, with varying degrees of evidence.
Still, some things are known for sure.
As was widely assumed within hours of the blast, the explosions were an act of deliberate sabotage. One of the three investigations, led by Sweden’s Prosecution Authority, confirmed in November that residues of explosives and several “foreign objects” were found at the “crime scene” on the seabed, around 100 meters below the surface of the Baltic Sea, close to the Danish Island of Bornholm.
Now two new media reports — one from the New York Times, the other a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR, plus newspaper Die Zeit — raised the possibility that a pro-Ukrainian group — though not necessarily state-backed — may have been responsible. On Wednesday, the German Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had searched a ship in January suspected of transporting explosives used in the sabotage, but was still investigating the seized objects, the identities of the perpetrators and their possible motives.
In the information vacuum since September, various theories have surfaced as to the culprit and their motive:
Theory 1: Putin, the energy bully
In the days immediately after the attack, the working assumption of many analysts in the West was that this was a brazen act of intimidation on the part of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spelt out the hypothesis via his Twitter feed on September 27 — the day after the explosions were first detected. He branded the incident “nothing more [than] a terrorist attack planned by Russia and act of aggression towards the EU” linked to Moscow’s determination to provoke “pre-winter panic” over gas supplies to Europe.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also hinted at Russian involvement. Russia denied responsibility.
The Nord Stream pipes are part-owned by Russia’s Gazprom. The company had by the time of the explosions announced an “indefinite” shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipes, citing technical issues which the EU branded “fallacious pretences.” The new Nord Stream 2 pipes, meanwhile, had never been brought into the service. Within days of Gazprom announcing the shutdown in early September, Putin issued a veiled threat that Europe would “freeze” if it stuck to its plan of energy sanctions against Russia.
But why blow up the pipeline, if gas blackmail via shutdowns had already proved effective? Why end the possibility of gas ever flowing again?
Simone Tagliapietra, energy specialist and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said it was possible that — if it was Russia — there may have been internal divisions about any such decision. “At that point, when Putin had basically decided to stop supplying [gas to] Germany, many in Russia may have been against that. This was a source of revenues.” It is possible, Tagliapietra said, that “hardliners” took the decision to end the debate by ending the pipelines.
Blowing up Nord Stream, in this reading of the situation, was a final declaration of Russia’s willingness to cut off Europe’s gas supply indefinitely, while also demonstrating its hybrid warfare capabilities. In October, Putin said that the attack had shown that “any critical infrastructure in transport, energy or communication infrastructure is under threat — regardless of what part of the world it is located” — words viewed by many in the West as a veiled threat of more to come.
Theory 2: The Brits did it
From the beginning, Russian leaders have insinuated that either Ukraine or its Western allies were behind the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said two days after the explosions that accusations of Russian culpability were “quite predictable and predictably stupid.” He added that Moscow had no interest in blowing up Nord Stream. “We have lost a route for gas supplies to Europe.”
Then a month on from the blasts, the Russian defense ministry made the very specific allegation that “representatives of the U.K. Navy participated in planning, supporting and executing” the attack. No evidence was given. The same supposed British specialists were also involved in helping Ukraine coordinate a drone attack on Sevastopol in Crimea, Moscow said.
The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said the “invented” allegations were intended to distract attention from Russia’s recent defeats on the battlefield. In any case, Moscow soon changed its tune.
Theory 3: U.S. black ops
In February, with formal investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark still yet to report, an article by the U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh triggered a new wave of speculation. Hersh’s allegation: U.S. forces blew up Nord Stream on direct orders from Joe Biden.
The account — based on a single source said to have “direct knowledge of the operational planning” — alleged that an “obscure deep-diving group in Panama City” was secretly assigned to lay remotely-detonated mines on the pipelines. It suggested Biden’s rationale was to sever once and for all Russia’s gas link to Germany, ensuring that no amount of Kremlin blackmail could deter Berlin from steadfastly supporting Ukraine.
Hersh’s article also drew on Biden’s public remarks when, in February 2022, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he told reporters that should Russia invade “there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”
The White House described Hersh’s story as “utterly false and complete fiction.” The article certainly included some dubious claims, not least that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has “cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War.” Stoltenberg, born in 1959, was 16 years old when the war ended.
Russian leaders, however, seized on the report, citing it as evidence at the U.N. Security Council later in February and calling for an U.N.-led inquiry into the attacks, prompting Germany, Denmark and Sweden to issue a joint statement saying their investigations were ongoing.
Theory 4: The mystery boatmen
The latest clues — following reports on Tuesday from the New York Times and German media — center on a boat, six people with forged passports and the tiny Danish island of Christiansø.
According to these reports, a boat that set sail from the German port of Rostock, later stopping at Christiansø, is at the center of the Nord Stream investigations.
Germany’s federal prosecutor confirmed on Wednesday that a ship suspected of transporting explosives had been searched in January — and some of the 100 or so residents of tiny Christiansø told Denmark’s TV2 that police had visited the island and made inquiries. Residents were invited to come forward with information via a post on the island’s Facebook page.
Both the New York Times and the German media reports suggested that intelligence is pointing to a link to a pro-Ukrainian group, although there is no evidence that any orders came from the Ukrainian government and the identities of the alleged perpetrators are also still unknown.
Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, tweeted he was enjoying “collecting amusing conspiracy theories” about what happened to Nord Stream, but that Ukraine had “nothing to do” with it and had “no information about pro-Ukraine sabotage groups.”
Meanwhile, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about the latest reports, adding that it was possible that there may have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.
The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said only that their investigation was ongoing, while a spokesperson for Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said information would be shared when available — but there was “no timeline” for when the inquiries would be completed.
The mystery continues.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
BERLIN — German prosecutors have found “traces”of evidence indicating that Ukrainians may have been involved in the explosions that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, according to German media reports Tuesday.
Investigators identified a boat that was potentially used for transporting a crew of six people, diving equipment and explosives into the Baltic Sea in early September. Charges were then placed on the pipelines, according to a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR as well as the newspaper Die Zeit.
The German reports said that the yacht had been rented from a company based in Poland that is “apparently owned by two Ukrainians.”
However, no clear evidence has been established so far on who ordered the attack, the reports said.
In its first reaction, Ukraine’s government dismissed the reports.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied the Ukrainian government had any involvement in the pipeline attacks. “Although I enjoy collecting amusing conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian government, I have to say: Ukraine has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and has no information about ‘pro-Ukraine sabotage groups,'” Podolyak wrote in a tweet.
Three of the four pipes making up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 undersea gas pipelines from Russia to Germany were destroyed by explosions last September. Germany, Sweden and Denmark launched investigations into an incident that was quickly established to be a case of “sabotage.”
The German media reports — which come on top of a New York Times report Tuesday which said that “intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group” sabotaged the pipelines — stress that there’s no proof that Ukrainian authorities ordered the attack or were involved in it.
Any potential involvement by Kyiv in the attack would risk straining relations between Ukraine and Germany, which is one of the most important suppliers of civilian and military assistance to the country as it fights against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
According to the investigation by German public prosecutors that is cited by the German outlets, the team which placed the explosive charges on the pipelines was comprised of five men — a captain, two divers and two diving assistants — as well as one woman doctor, all of them of unknown nationality and operating with false passports. They left the German port of Rostock on September 6 on the rented boat, the report said.
It added that the yacht was later returned to the owner “in uncleaned condition” and that “on the table in the cabin, the investigators were able to detect traces of explosives.”
But the reports also said that investigators can’t exclude that the potential link to Ukraine was part of a “false flag” operation aiming to pin the blame on Kyiv for the attacks.
Contacted by POLITICO, a spokesperson for the German government referred to ongoing investigations by the German prosecutor general’s office, which declined to comment.
The government spokesperson also said: “a few days ago, Sweden, Denmark and Germany informed the United Nations Security Council that investigations were ongoing and that there was no result yet.”
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed the reports of Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings, saying in a post on the Telegram social media site that they were aimed at distracting attention from earlier, unsubstantiated, reports that the U.S. destroyed the pipelines.
Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
