Sweden is at last entering NATO, thanks to Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lifting their holds on Stockholm’s application. The decision by these leaders to finally support Swedish entry means that the Baltic Sea has effectively become a NATO lake, thereby heightening the threat not only to the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, but to Vladimir Putin’s native St. Petersburg as well.
A number of factors led to the long-awaited decisions by the two leaders. Turkey objected to Sweden’s refusal to crack down on its large Kurdish population, many of whom Ankara considered to be members or supporters of the Kurdish terrorist PKK organization. But over the past year, Sweden introduced a new anti-terrorism bill that renders membership in a terrorist enterprise illegal. Stockholm also increased its surveillance of the Kurdish community, toughened its treatment of Kurdish asylum seekers and shut down bank accounts of Kurdish charities suspected of supporting the PKK. Swedish public radio also announced the termination of its Kurdish language broadcasts, though it insists that is just a cost-cutting measure. When the Turkish parliament ratified Sweden’s application, members of the Erdogan’s AK Party pointed to Sweden’s new policies as a major factor in their voting to support Swedish entry to NATO.
Turkey had also........