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by BurningFrog 1176 days ago
Meanwhile, Sweden's NATO application is blocked by Turkey because former Peshmerga fighter Amineh Kakabaveh happened to become very powerful in the chaotic Swedish parliament a few years ago.

The story: https://www.outlookindia.com/international/former-kurdish-re...

1 comments

That's a simplification, and there are a bunch of other reasons.

The dictator Erdogan wanting to pressure Sweden and NATO for instance.

And appear like a strong and mighty leader in the May elections. Distract from tanking the economy and encouraging corruption. I could be arrested for saying such things, if I was in Turkey.
The most important reasons IMHO are (1) domestic election and (2) wanting to get a hold of some F-16s for their air force.
Which the US would have been willing to give... if they didn't cozy up to the Russians for S-300 and S-400s.

They also wanted F-35s, not just F-16s. That's not one to sell unless you're 100% confident they won't copy it for their own domestic production, or sell it to, say, the Russians. And modern Turkey is looking a little shaky in that regard (no, not an earthquake joke).

So you are telling Turkey bought s-400 out of nowhere? US never become true ally of Turkey. And your F-35s reasoning is not right as well. From the beginning Turkey is a part of alliance. But now they afraid Turkey to sell f-35 to Russia?
> So you are telling Turkey bought s-400 out of nowhere?

No, from Russia.

> But now they afraid Turkey to sell f-35 to Russia?

No, they're afraid of what Russia's S-400 that Turkey bought might covertly reveal to Russia about the F-35.

Turkey had the choice between the F-35 and the S-400. It chose the S-400 instead of the F-35. It has no one to blame for that decision but Turkey.

There are other factors for sure, but without Sweden's recent pro kurdish policy swing, my guess is that both Sweden and Finland would have joined today.