Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses media representatives during a press conference at the NATO summit at the Ifema congress centre in Madrid, on June 30, 2022. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP) (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)

by Burak Bekdil  •  September 5, 2022 at 5:00 am

• Erdoğan said that Turkey would freeze Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids if the Nordic countries do not come into line with Turkey’s “fight against terrorist organizations.”
• That might be a tough task for Finland and Sweden. In 2019, Erdoğan notoriously called half of Turks (those who do not vote for him) terrorists. The same year, Erdoğan declared the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party a terrorist entity. In parliamentary elections in June 2015, that party won 13% of the national vote and 80 seats in the Turkish parliament. Nevertheless, in 2021, Erdoğan stated that the students who peacefully protested his appointment of a rector to Boğaziçi University were “terrorists.”
• If Sweden and Finland do not fight wholeheartedly everyone Erdoğan deems a terrorist, does that mean he will veto their membership?
• Kavala was acquitted on all charges but, as Erdoğan publicly insists that he is a “traitor,” he was not released from prison. Upon his acquittal, a prosecutor instantly produced a new indictment against him.
• The West should tell Erdoğan it is ISIS, not men like Kavala, that is the terror threat to civilization.
• Read more…