 Over the past few weeks, Turkey has been engaging in a number of diplomatic maneuvers. A key moment was the recent NATO summit, when it dropped its objection to the induction of Finland and Sweden. Turkey claimed that the two countries had been forced to accept its concerns and demands regarding the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey considers a terrorist group. Turkish President Erdogan and his supporters have portrayed this as a big victory for the country. Why did Turkey object to the induction of Finland and Sweden into NATO? And what did it achieve at the NATO summit? Rania Khalik of Breakthrough News explains. So it looks like Finland and Sweden after basically pushing Turkey to accept them will now become members of NATO. Now Finland and Sweden were officially neutral for decades, and I say officially neutral because in reality, they weren't actually neutral. I mean, Sweden has been thoroughly integrated into the NATO security architecture. And you know, you could go back even further. I mean, Sweden played a crucial role in basically helping Nazis flee the region after their defeat in World War Two. Finland is more of like a front line state with Russia and has a historical memory of conflict with it. And in fact, it seems the Swedes were actually surprised by the sudden sort of finished decision to join NATO. And it pressured them into making a move they would, I don't think of otherwise done because, but they didn't want to leave Finland alone. So immediately after the finished decision, the far right in Sweden, which is becoming increasingly powerful in parliament, you know, vociferously jumped on board of joining NATO. And normally the Swedish government could have ignored this, but with elections a few months away and the government worried about losing to the right. They felt they had to take the same position, which they might again not have where there are no elections soon. So it overturns basically 200 years of what I said official neutrality, even if they were already integrated in unofficially into NATO. So they hadn't been a part of the defense pact. The Swedish military of course will like this because it means bigger budgets. You know, Sweden has quite a sophisticated has quite sophisticated fighter jets and a very powerful Navy and it's in fact one of the largest exporters of military technology in the world. Despite its reputation as like a happy peaceful socialist paradise in South Africa and Brazil and a few other countries actually use their fighter jets. And the US Navy is even jealous of the Swedish Navy, because their submarines outperformed the American Navy in the past. And in fact, you know the Saudis had long been one of the top purchasers of Swedish weapons and this was temporarily halted a few years back. When there was a crisis in Swedish Saudi relations after the Swedish foreign minister described Saudi Arabia as a medieval society and condemned its human rights abuses. Swedish corporations by the way were like furious about this and then pressured the government to mend the broken ties, and eventually relations were restored. And that might actually be why the UN Special Envoy to Yemen is Swedish, so they can like maybe feel better about themselves for putting the gun in Saudi Arabia's hands while also trying to end the war. Anyway, that's all aside, you know the obstacle to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, as you mentioned, was Turkey's Erdogan, who was very upset about their support for the PKK run autonomous administration. And the American occupied northeast of Syria, and as well for the presence of these alleged PKK members in Finland and Sweden. So, one reason for Swedish support for the Kurdish Autonomous Administration is one Swedish member of parliament of Kurdish origin, who actually could have brought down the government if she didn't get her way during a crisis having to do with the pressure of justice and pressure from the right, played a role there. However, Erdogan is like this ultimate pragmatist and was just using his leverage to extract some concession so he wanted the Swedish ban on selling weapons to Turkey removed, and a commitment that these wanted PKK members would be extradited Turkey before he would agree to allow Sweden and Finland to join NATO. So we did in Finland both consider the PKK a terrorist organization as does you know the US as does Turkey. So in theory, they will comply with that but the question is who counts as PKK and if you actually read the fine print. You see that it's going to be contingent on human rights compliance. So, if you really think about it Turkey kind of just got a symbolic victory here. So Turkey recently sent this like a philanthropist and activist Osman Kavala to prison for a lifetime and solitary confinement with zero possibility of parole. So Turkey standards for individual liberty are much different than the Scandinavian standards. But you know money and power are more important than these concerns. So we'll see but in addition you know the Swedish Prime Minister started engaging with Erdogan so he made. He ultimately agreed so that's one side. That's basically what took place is now, you know people are rightfully upset that there's a possibility though again I think this was still symbolic that the Finnish and Swedish governments could extradite, you know wanted PKK members to Turkey who would then face, you know, very harsh conditions. Turkey has taken a very aggressive position in Syria where it has said it intends to invade again and secure territory to house refugees from the decade long conflict. What is Erdogan's plan in the region and how does he seek to achieve it. So Turkey has been increasing its attacks on PKK targets in Syria and Iraq, which of course also led to civilian casualties. The US which protects the Kurds in northeast Syria and I use protects and big quotes I mean they essentially use them to occupy a chunk of northeast Syria to make to you know as pressure against the government of Bashar al-Assad in their ongoing attempt to weaken and perhaps you know overthrow that government, but the US which acts as a protector of the Kurds in the northeast of Syria, can't really object to Turkey doing this because Turkey provides Ukraine with essential weapons in in the war in Russia, especially with the Turkish drones. And so the Turks have all you know this is because the Turks have basically been angry for years about the US creation of this. Essentially what is like a PKK, like statelet in northeast Syria, and US support for the PKK the US does this under the auspices by the way of the Syrian Democratic Forces, what they call the SDF but it's really just the Syrian branch of the PKK, the YPG and my apologies for all of these acronyms but there are so many. But essentially the SDF is just the YPG or PKK under a different name. So the US military support for this group, you know, has made the organization really more powerful than it's ever been. And it's also increased its influence any rock, spreading from it's kind of like mountain stronghold and condo down to in a province in Iraq. So the Turks have been increasingly nervous about this, which explains their sort of ongoing pursuit of the PKK through these, you know, various incursions and bombing and bombing campaigns in both Iraq and Syria. In another major developments, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Turkey recently, marking a major step in the rapprochement between the two countries ties had soared after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. What has led to this change in the dynamics between these two regional powers? And what does it vote for the future? So just as Erdogan has reconciled with these aspiring NATO members Finland and Sweden, he's also made a much more shocking reconciliation with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or as we know him MBS. So Turkish ties with the Saudis and the Emiratis had collapsed during the Arab Spring. And Turkey at that time had allied with their rival. So Turkey even blamed the Emirates for supporting an attempted coup against Erdogan. So that is kind of another, you know, reason behind Turkey's resentment towards these particular Gulf States. However, in the last year as we've seen this kind of regional rapprochement with countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran and Qatar and Egypt and Turkey and the UAE kind of all improving ties and deescalating from past tensions. You know, the Turks had, had squeezed a lot out of the Saudis after the former Saudi spy and friend of bin Laden turned trader turned Washington post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered and chopped into pieces in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. So Turkey is like undergoing this horrible financial crisis. It has been for a while and it keeps getting worse so it needs to improve ties with the Saudis for the same reason that, you know, Biden is now breaking his word and meeting with MBS right it's completely out of convenience. Recently Turkey, it's important to note had also greatly improved relations with Israel after years of tensions with this visit of the Israeli president to Turkey, and then Turkish intelligence cooperating with the massage to, you know, quote unquote protect Israelis from alleged kidnapping or assassination attempts for Israeli assassinations of Iranians. So in order to improve ties with Israel Turkey had to improve ties with or had to I'm sorry had to promise in order to improve ties with Israel. So Turkey had to promise to reduce Hamas activities in its territory. And this is just as an order like to improve ties with Egypt Turkey also promised to reduce Muslim Brotherhood activities and media in its tour territory. This kind of improvement of ties with Saudi Arabia is part of an ongoing pattern across the region of you know Turkey kind of like making deals here and there with, you know frenemies, if you will, for its own, you know, domestic reasons.