Finland and Sweden are on the path to membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after Turkey dropped its opposition to inviting them. The three countries signed a trilateral memorandum that fulfills Turkey’s demands but spells doom for Kurdish communities in the Middle East. Finland and Sweden received their invitations to NATO on the backs of millions of Kurds oppressed by Turkish President Recep Erdogan.
When news first broke of Finland and Sweden’s intent to join NATO, Erdogan accused the two nations of supporting “terrorist organizations.” By “terrorist organizations,” the Turkish president means Kurdish militias that fight for freedom. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group operating within Turkey’s borders, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. However, Erdogan refuses to make a distinction between the PKK and legitimate Kurdish organizations such as the U.S.-backed People’s Defense Units (YPG).
The YPG is a Kurdish militia underneath the Syrian Democratic Forces. While the YPG is considered the Syrian arm of the PKK, they were also a crucial ally in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. Alongside other SDF militias, the YPG liberated the city of Raqqa from ISIS. This was no minor victory; Raqqa was the capital city for the jihadists. As ISIS fades away, the SDF is facing another threat to Kurdish autonomy in Syria: Turkey.
Turkey’s initial objection to Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO is not from legitimate security concerns. Erdogan is embarking on a quasi-jihadist campaign in northern Syria that targets Kurdish communities native to the region. Turkey backs the Syrian National Army to further its goals in the war-torn nation, and the SNA contains former ISIS members who receive orders directly from Turkey. Turkey launched a coordinated incursion, titled Operation Peace Spring, into Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria in 2019. Sweden and Finland enacted an arms embargo against Turkey in retaliation, but this was lifted after the signing of the trilateral memo.
Kurdish communities have been betrayed by their Western allies in the past. Operation Peace Spring was possible thanks to former President Donald Trump’s decision to indirectly authorize it. Rather than reining in our NATO ally, Trump withdrew troops from Northeast Syria and paved the way for Turkey’s offensive. The resulting humanitarian crisis in northeast Syria affected thousands of Kurdish civilians. “The US withdrawal from northeast Syria, Turkey’s military offensive and the Syrian government joining the fray was a combination of worst-case scenarios happening all at once,” according to Amnesty International.
Yet the trilateral memorandum goes a step further than changing the foreign policy of Sweden and Finland. From now on, Turkish dissidents living in Sweden and Finland will face the possibility of extradition to the country they fled from. “FETO” is another organization labeled a domestic terrorist organization by the Turkish government and is one of the groups targeted in the memo. There’s a catch: No such thing exists.
FETO stands for “Fethullah Terrorist Organization,” and Turkey uses it to attack followers of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Erdogan accused Gullenists of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, but a report from the European Union’s intelligence-sharing agency found it “unlikely that Gulen himself played a role.” The report goes a step further and accuses Erdogan of utilizing the foiled coup to target his political opponents. Despite being an alliance built on defending Western democracies and their citizens, NATO has legitimized Turkey’s efforts to label political dissidents as terrorists by utilizing “FETO” as a term in the trilateral memorandum and agreeing to extradite those labeled as members of the fictional organization.
NATO may be protecting Finland and Sweden from Russia, but the alliance treated our partners in the Middle East as pawns without their own legitimate security concerns. Critiques of Turkey are commonly brushed aside in the name of preventing close relations with Russia and China. If appeasement worked, Turkey would not be moving forward with plans to buy more Russian air defense systems. The foreign policy establishment needs to have a reckoning with Turkey. Kurdish civilians and Turkish dissidents will continue to face oppression from Erdogan’s authoritarian government until the West decides to take its “shared values” seriously.
James Sweet is a summer 2022 Washington Examiner fellow.
