Stockholm to distance itself from Kurdish fighters to join NATO

Sweden’s new government will distance itself from Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters as it seeks to win Turkey’s approval to join NATO, its foreign minister told Swedish radio today.

The Kurdish YPG militia in Syria and its political arm PYD are considered by Turkey to be extensions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

Since 1984, the PKK has been engaged in armed conflict with the Turkish state with the initial goal of achieving an independent Kurdish state.

Turkey, the US and the EU consider the PKK a terrorist organization.

Sweden along with the US and many other NATO countries support the YPG in its fight against the Islamic State.

However, Turkey has vowed to block Sweden’s NATO membership unless it stops supporting the Kurdish militia.

“There is too close a relationship between these organizations and the PKK … and it is not good for our relationship with Turkey,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told public broadcaster Swedish Radio.

“The primary goal is Sweden’s accession to NATO,” he commented.

These statements come a few days before Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson’s planned visit to Ankara with the aim of persuading Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to allow Sweden to join the Alliance.

Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO earlier this year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Their request has been approved by 28 of the 30 NATO member countries. Nordic countries expressed this week their hope that Hungary would lift its objections.

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