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** NATO Family Picture in Madrid: This Will Not Be Erdoğan's Last Blackmail ([link removed])
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by Burak Bekdil • July 7, 2022 at 5:00 am
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* "I don't know what Turkey's trying to extract from them, but at the end of the day that's what this is about. And maybe if we get in the game, they'll want to extract from us too, which I will be vehemently opposed to. We don't need for any extraction to take place or any concessions to take place to have two great democracies join NATO." — US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ), June 22, 2022.
* Talking to Erdoğan in the language he understands best, in early June, the U.S. State Department and the European Commission expressed their support to Greece and its sovereignty over its islands of the eastern Aegean Sea, and called on Turkey to stop airspace violations and overflights, threats and provocative rhetoric.
* That means, in Erdoğan's language, further economic sanctions on Turkey. And further sanctions will mean Erdoğan's chances for re-election will get even slimmer amid a punishing economic crisis.
* Erdoğan controls 90% of the media in Turkey. That is a big asset in politics.
* So, the whole choreography, from the beginning, was aimed at a domestic audience who would feel triumphant from Erdoğan's victory over the infidels.
* The "Nordics in NATO" issue is not entirely over. Full accession will require approval from all 30 NATO parliaments. This, and other future issues, will always give Erdoğan new leverage to blackmail the West's strongest institution.

Pictured: Leaders of NATO member states pose for the "family photo" during the NATO Summit on June 29, 2022 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images)

It was another happy time in Madrid, of half-baked, Kodak-moment pleasantries when the leaders of 30 NATO member states posed for the cameras with broad family smiles. They were on display for Turkey's Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for having removed his veto against the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. How did that happen? The stick.

On June 23, Turkey's top defense procurement official, Ismail Demir, said that Turkey must be cautious when it comes to delivering more weapons to Ukraine amid the war with Russia. The statement was a clear sign that Ankara did not want to annoy Moscow with the sale to Ukraine of the Turkish-made TB-2 armed drones which, in the early days of the war, were instrumental, but later became easy targets for Russian air defenses.

Here, however, is the choreography:

On May 17, Erdoğan said that Turkey would veto Sweden and Finland's bids for NATO membership, and accused them of hosting Kurdish separatists.

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