You can’t fool us Erdogan, we’ve seen this move before.
By tomorrow he’ll have new demands. He’ll demand Sweden form a space agency and plant the Turkish flag on the moon or something like that, mark my words.
Yes yes I signed it just need to find my stamps to put it in the mail. Just one more thing it is very important please can you arrange to hold the Eurovision in Ankara next year instead?
I think the US delegation took him aside and said something along the lines of “alright chucklefuck, going forward, if you want parts and technical support for any of the massive amounts of extremely advanced military shit we’ve sold you for decades, you’re going to stop fucking around on the Sweden accession”.
If the goal was to extract concessions, then any actual opposition to it was nothing more than pantomime and theatre. Presumably he finagled a deal he's happy with.
Now Hungary is a different beast, since Orban has recently been much more warm and cuddly with Putin than Turkey has, but perhaps with Turkey acceding to the arrangement they'll play some follow-the-fascist-leader and fall in line.
Nah. He is also known for instant turns, when he thinks he has bargained enough or when it happens to suit the image he wants to present.
For example say he decided “Vilnius is the moment I stop bargaining, but only at last minute. Lets see what concessions I can get out of them until then” or so on.
It is exactly on brand for Erdogan to suddenly turn his position and go “what problem, there is no problem. What I said last week there was a problem… no no no, I Erdogan The First have solved problem quickly in only few days. Yes we made a deal, I negotiated amazing deal, deal solves the problem. There is No problem anumore. It’s solved.”
What happened to solve the problem? Nothing, Erdogan just stopped insisting there was a problem in first place and well some flowery language on top to make it look like it was deal to end the problem and not a climb down to end the problem.
You do also have to remember that a lot of this was around the elections and stoking the flames of a boogeyman (the PKK), so now that they’re done and over with it was just a matter of time.
The price is for Sweden to push for talks to be brought up again. That is not the same thing as letting Turkey join the EU. Though it should also be said the Swedish prime minister said no new terms have been agreed since November.
Won’t happen, not with the whole Hungary mess and the rise of the political far-right going on. No government would risk political suicide and the end of the Union for Sweden’s NATO membership.
Didn’t he just say either yesterday or today that he wouldn’t back Sweden joining NATO until Turkey was allowed into the EU? I hope his neck wasn’t broken from that whiplash.
Luckily, being dictator in a post truth environment apparently voids the need for consistancy. Something something always at war with oceania something insert comment about the prescience of some old/dead person.
bbc.co.uk
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