Sweden's Kurds pay price of NATO deal with Turkey

Sweden applied for full membership of the NATO alliance on May 18, 2022, in the wake of Russia’s assault on Ukraine. For 20 excruciating months it was left dangling by Turkey as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pressed for returns with the sort of braggadocio that would have left even Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar merchants in awe.

In the end, Turkey relented and on Jan. 23 of this year, the Turkish Parliament approved Sweden’s accession to the world’s premier security club, leaving Hungary the sole outlier, but at what cost? In a world seized by power politics, few outside the Nordic nation appear to care.

The prevailing consensus is that Turkey used Sweden’s membership bid as leverage to get the United States to accede to its demands for F-16 fighter jets, whose sale was being blocked by the US Congress before greenlighting the Swedish accession. Yet, as the dust from the wrangling settles, it is becoming increasingly clear that while Ankara failed to bend Stockholm fully to its will, it forced a country that long prided itself on placing human rights above all else to alter its tune and Sweden’s sizable Kurdish population is feeling the heat.

The shift was strikingly on display when Ann Linde, Sweden’s former foreign minister, acknowledged publicly in July that Turkey’s complaints concerning the activities of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Swedish soil — the militant group that is waging an armed campaign against the Turkish state — were in part justified.