Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly rejected Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO. Because consensus governs NATO, every member has a veto. Privately, however, the negotiating is just beginning. Over at the national security and defense website 19FortyFive, I argue that the United States and European states should not bargain with Turkey but should instead play hardball.

A usually reliable source
subsequently sent me a list of Turkish demands. While the State Department has
not yet confirmed these, they appear consistent with past Turkish diplomatic démarches.
In order to get Turkey to drop its objection to NATO enlargement, Erdogan
demands the following:

• NATO should classify not only the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) but also the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) in the alliance’s list of threats.
• The United States should then extradite Pennsylvania-based dissident cleric Fethullah Gülen to Turkey.
• All NATO members, including Sweden and Finland, must cease any activity by the PKK, SDF, or FETO on their territories.
• The United States and other NATO bodies must lift all sanctions related to Turkey’s purchase of the S-400, including sanctions upon the Turkish Defense Industry Directorate.
• Turkey would not only receive the new F-16s and upgrade kits for its existing fleet, but Turkey will also be able to rejoin the F-35 program from which it was expelled after activating the Russian S-400s.
• Lastly, the United States would cease preventing Turkey from exporting military products containing Western components.

In short, Turkey’s demands are impossible to meet. A Belgian court, for example, has ruled that the PKK represents not a terrorist group but rather “a party in a non-international armed conflict.” Likewise, Turkey’s dossier of accusations against Gülen failed to convince US diplomats or the Justice Department. If anything, its sloppiness raised doubt on the capabilities of Turkish intelligence and the legitimacy of its products. Regardless, Erdogan beclowns himself with such demands as he appears not to realize that outside Turkey, NATO member presidents and prime ministers cannot order their judiciaries to change positions or strip rights away from their citizens or permanent residents. The same logic applies to Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions. Even if President Biden wanted to assuage Erdogan, he cannot run roughshod over US law. The Syrian Defense Forces, meanwhile, proved a far more reliable ally against the Islamic State than Turkey.

In some ways, the most interesting
demand, however, is the last regarding re-exports of American components
incorporated into Turkish military products. This likely reflects real concern
in Ankara at congressional moves to restrict the sale of some electronics to
Turkey after revelations that Turkey used American computer chips in drones
that it subsequently deployed against Kurds or Armenians, or sold to Ethiopia
for use in its genocidal campaign against the Tigrayans.

If these demands hold, it becomes clearer than ever that Turkey does not belong in NATO.

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