The White House hinted at the tone of the call when it said Biden expressed a desire to get Sweden into NATO “as soon as possible.” Turkey’s change of heart also followed a telephone call between Biden and Erdogan on Sunday, in which the American president appears to have made his position crystal clear. “This is not new negotiation, but it is about implementing, and reassuring the implementation of the different things we agreed a year ago in Madrid,” Stoltenberg said. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who is very close to Biden and was just persuaded to extend his term until October 2024, said that Turkey’s change of heart was the product of months of diplomacy. In recent years, the US has been frustrated by his cozying up to Putin and also his suggestions, yet to be realized, of a rapprochement with Syria.īehind the scenes diplomacy after US pressure The newly reelected Erdogan has vexed successive US presidents for years, both over his geopolitical muscle flexing and his hardline rule that Washington fears will erode Turkey’s secular constitution and democracy. He had already dropped objections to Finland joining the alliance. While it is so far unclear whether Erdogan secured anything more than cosmetic concessions from Sweden, NATO’s European powers and the United States, his sudden change of mind raises the question of whether he had negotiated himself into a corner. Monday’s events were another intriguing twist for a mercurial leader who has leveraged Turkey’s strategic position where the West meets the East to try to rebuild his country as a major regional power. Secondly, the decision by Erdogan – an increasingly autocratic leader who has enjoyed largely cordial ties with the Kremlin strongman – will frustrate Russia’s attempts to sow divides between NATO members in order to weaken the alliance. First, it will result in the expansion of NATO territory and strengthen the alliance after an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine that Putin had argued was partly intended to weaken the West and to counter what he claims is its effort to neuter Russia’s power in its own backyard. New member states need unanimous approval of all NATO’s members before they can join the club and benefit from its collective security guarantee.Įrdogan’s move was also a severe blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden had said before leaving the US that Ukraine was not ready to join. Turkey’s about-face will also lighten the mood at the NATO summit, where the alliance’s most unified moment in years had been in danger of being somewhat tarnished by divides over Ukraine’s pleas to get a timetable for membership. Turkey has agreed to back Sweden's NATO bid, alliance chief says (Photo by TUR Presidency/ Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Turkish Presidency/Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images VILNIUS, LITHUANIA - JULY 10: (-EDITORIAL USE ONLY - MANDATORY CREDIT - "TURKISH PRESIDENCY / MURAT CETINMUHURDAR / HANDOUT" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS-) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson within the NATO Vilnius Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 10, 2023. His legacy will ultimately depend, however, on the outcome of the war in Ukraine and his capacity to avoid a direct clash with Russia. Bush, who presided over the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. Biden’s lifeline of arms and ammunition for Ukraine and leadership of the alliance has made him the most significant president in transatlantic affairs at least since George H.W. Finland – which decided to sign up, like Sweden, after the invasion of Ukraine – has already added hundreds of miles of NATO territory on Russia’s border. Once Sweden finally joins NATO, it will bolster Biden’s reputation as a US leader who reinvigorated and expanded the bloc.
The reversal by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came hours after he warned Sweden would be out in the cold until Turkey got its long-delayed membership in the European Union. Turkey’s lifting of its blockade on Sweden’s entry into NATO was a significant and stunning move on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania. President Joe Biden has already secured a powerful deliverable from his Europe trip – one that will weaken Russia’s strategic position in another detrimental consequence of its invasion of Ukraine.
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