Do Sweden & Finland support Terrorism? That’s what they’re being accused of by Turkey’s President
Erdogan. Turkey says it’s going to block the Scandinavian countries from joining NATO
because it believes they support a group known as the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party.
If you’ve never heard of Kurdistan before that’s because technically it isn’t a real country,
but the more than 30 million Kurdish people living worldwide
are very real and for a long time there’s been an ongoing struggle
between the Turkish government and Kurdish independence groups.
So, who exactly are the Kurds?
What's behind this tension with the Turkish government?
And what does any of this have to do with
Scandinavian countries on the opposite side of the continent?
Let’s start with that first one. Who are the Kurds?
Kurds are one of the world’s biggest ethnic groups that don’t have their own home country,
with the majority living in a region known as Kurdistan.
The reason Kurdistan is only a region and not an official country goes back to the end of World
War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire which is what existed before modern day Turkey.
For centuries, the empire spanned multiple continents
and was home to a range of ethnic groups, like the Kurds.
When it fell, the victorious allies started to carve up the empire.
In 1920, a treaty was signed between the Allies and the Ottomans
proposing a new Turkish state and leaving the possibility open for a Kurdish state too.
The thing is the deal didn’t go down too well with a lot of Turkish people
who believed they were losing too much land and too much control.
After 3 years of fighting a new deal was struck,
which led to the creation of the Republic of Turkey.
However, the treaty not only ended the war, it also ended hopes for an independent Kurdish state.
In the decades that followed, Kurdish people continued to live in the region
but were now split across multiple countries where they have often been
on the receiving end of brutal and violent repression and persecution.
“The Kurds of northern Iraq are under siege again.”
“The Kurdish refugee crisis…”
“…the plight of the Kurdish refugees.”
“…and Kurdish culture and language have, for years, been discouraged.”
So, what happened to the millions of Kurds that
found themselves in this newly created Republic of Turkey?
Turkish leaders were worried about the idea
of minority ethnic groups rising up and pushing for independence,
something the Ottoman Empire had seen a lot of during the Balkan Wars and World War I.
They decided that in order for Turkey not to be divided again, Turkey has to have a
homogeneous nation, meaning that only the Turkish language
was allowed, not only officially, but to a great extent unofficially as well.
Leaders believed that the Ottoman Empire had been
soft on ethnic groups by letting them speak their native languages.
So, a decision was made to erase the languages and cultures of minority groups from public life.
What followed were uprisings in the 1920s and 30s
by Kurdish people who wanted more rights, recognition and independence.
The uprisings made the Turkish government crackdown even harder on Kurdish groups.
Many Kurds were forced from their homes,
Kurdish names and traditional clothes were banned and the Kurdish language was restricted.
The government even went as far as denying the existence of the Kurdish
ethnic identity instead using the term “Mountain Turks.”
This repression against the Kurds in the south-east of Turkey,
has facilitated the PKK in its early days.
In 1978, Abdullah Öcalan formed the PKK,
a communist group that called for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.
In 1984 the PKK went to war with the Turkish government,
which has resulted in the deaths of more than 40,000 people.
While many of the PKK’s efforts have been directed at the Turkish state,
there have been many examples of the PKK attacking civilians and committing terrorist acts and by
the early 2000s most western countries had labelled the PKK a terrorist organisation.
An important thing to remember in all of this is that most of
the animosity is between the Turkish government and Kurdish revolutionaries
and that most Kurdish people have been living peacefully in society alongside Turkish people.
Millions of Turkish families have Kurdish members, and many Kurdish families have Turkish members.
The idea of an independent Kurdish state has become less
popular among Kurds in Turkey in recent times.
The PKK even shifted its focus in the 90s from
independence, to getting more rights and recognition for Kurds in Turkey.
The rights of Kurdish people in Turkey have been improving over the years,
especially since the early 2000s.
The Kurds can demand education in Kurdish.
Kurds can give their children Kurdish names. The Kurdish language is not
forbidden anymore. Actually, the Turkish state TV has a Kurdish channel now.
Although, many agree that a lot of work still needs to be done before
actual equality is achieved.
Being a Kurd in Turkey does not mean that automatically you would be denied your rights
but there is one condition, you shouldn't really
be talking about your Kurdish ethnicity, Kurdish identity, etc. You need to be silent.
People may know that you are Kurdish, you don't have to hide it, but you shouldn't
really underline it and you should say that I am a Turk, I am part of the society etc.
Okay, so now that we know about the PKK,
the next big question is: Do Sweden & Finland actually support terrorism?
The Turkish government definitely seems to think so.
Scandinavian countries, unfortunately, are like a guesthouse for terror organisations.
What does Erdogan mean by this?
Sweden and Finland both have a long history of taking in Kurdish asylum seekers and refugees,
particularly political refugees.
Erdogan says a number of these Kurds are terrorists and he’s even
accused some politicians of being terrorists too.
A number of politicians and asylum seekers in these countries have criticised Erdogan
and been vocal in their support of the Kurdish people, but the idea that they’re terrorists,
that Sweden or Finland are sheltering, is something both countries strongly deny.
The Turkish government says it’s provided Sweden and Finland with a list of terrorists
that it wants sent back to Turkey, but so far it seems that both Sweden and Finland
don’t agree with the charges or are willing to send anyone over.
A big reason why, is the fact that Turkey and
Sweden and Finland have very different ideas of what a terrorist actually is.
Turkish definition of terrorism, especially under Erdogan, for the last 5-6 years,
has become ridiculous, I would say. So, if you are an opponent of the ruling party,
if you criticise Erdogan heavily, then you are a terrorist.
For years, the Turkish government has been criticised by human rights groups
for using terrorism accusations as a way of silencing critics.
In 2022, Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 149th in the world for press freedom.
The Turkish government says it has to take a more extreme approach to national security
because it faces more threats than any of its European allies,
a fact that’s been repeated by the head of NATO in recent weeks
Turkey is the ally that has suffered the most terrorist attacks,
far more than any other NATO ally country.
The Turkish government has pointed to a number of recent events to justify its
harsh approach towards what it sees as threats.
The threat of terror and the security threat,
new security measures had to be taken and freedom had to be reduced.
If you’re curious about what the official position of the Swedish and Finnish
governments is when it comes to the PKK, they both agree that it is a terrorist organisation.
However, the situation in Syria makes things a little but murkier.
Over the past decade, a number of western countries, including Sweden and Finland,
have supported a Kurdish-led alliance in Syria that have been helping in the fight against ISIS.
“In Syria today, US-backed fighters…”
“…the main US ally…”
“US-backed, Kurdish-led forces…”
“…they form the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.”
The Turkish government, on the other hand,
says the SDF alliance is actually dominated by a terrorist group known as the YPG.
There's no other element which has any autonomy and decision-making capacity, except the YPG.
The Turkish government says the YPG is just the Syrian version of the PKK
and that the two groups are practically identical and often work together.
In 2019, Erdogan even publicly accused the commander of the SDF
of being a terrorist, with close ties to the founder of the PKK.
Ferhat Abdi Şahin’s been instrumental in the killings of hundreds of Turkish civilians
and he is a person labelled as ‘like a son’ to the terrorist leader.
Even if the PKK and YPG have nothing to do with each other and are composed
of different people, different organisations etc, their ideology is the same.
Most western countries disagree and only recognise the PKK, and not the YPG,
as a terrorist organisation and many of these countries, including Sweden,
have promised to continue to send aid to the political arm of the SDF.
In fact, Sweden and Finland stopped selling and sending weapons to Turkey,
after Turkish groups moved into Syria and started to attack the SDF.
“Turkey is trying to seize land just inside the border,
to create what it claims, is a safe zone inside Syria.”
Something that Turkey did, because, again,
it sees the SDF as a terrorist-controlled group and a threat to its national security.
Sweden and Finland aren’t alone in all of this by the way.
Sweden and Finland were almost the last ones who were called out by Turkey.
A number of countries, including actual NATO members,
have taken in Kurdish refugees, have Kurdish members of parliament,
have supported Kurdish groups in Syria and have put sanctions on Turkish trade.
The reason why Sweden and Finland are being called out is because they’re
the ones applying for NATO, which puts Turkey in a strong bargaining position
because every single member of NATO needs to approve before anyone new can be added.
The Turkish government says that it does want Sweden and Finland to join NATO,
but it won’t allow them to join a security organisation while they support
groups that Turkey says threaten its own security.
Turkey is hoping it can use this opportunity to get some big concessions,
like some of the trade bans being lifted and getting help
in shutting down what it believes to be threats in other countries.
Experts say it’s unlikely that all of these demands will be met, but NATO and its members
are still confident that negotiations between the countries will be successful.
As for what these negotiations will mean for the future of relations
between western countries and the Kurdish people, we’ll just have to wait and see.