For The Second Consecutive Year, The Most Consequential Head Of State Attending The Annual NATO Summit Will Be The Same Person. He Will Be Giving And Receiving.
For The Second Consecutive Year, The Most Consequential Head Of State At The Annual NATO Summit Will Be The Same Person.
Hint: He Likes To Sing. Play Basketball.
Turkiye President Erdogan May Also Have The Most Fulsome Schedule In Vilnius, Lithuania, Including:
With Joseph Biden, President Of The United States.
With Ulf Hjalmar Ed Kristersson, Prime Minister Of Sweden.
With Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece. After Syria, Greece Is The Most Important Bilateral Challenge For Turkiye.
Although President Erdogan Endorsed NATO Membership For Ukraine, Accepting Deliveries Of F-16’s To Ukraine While F-16’s And F-16 Upgrades Are Denied To Turkiye Will Be A Non-Starter.
For The Government Of Turkiye, Sweden’s Ascension To NATO Membership Is Also Entwined With F-16’s, F-35’s, The Muslim Faith, The Koran, Those Who Identify As Kurdish, Human Rights, Media Rights, And Women’s Rights.
Politicians will deny one issue to another connectivity when it suits them and connect one issue to another when it suits them. For their constituents, it is generally the outcome that matters rather than the process to that outcome.
Endorsing NATO Membership For Ukraine May Assist President Biden With Garnering Support Necessary From Members Of The United States Congress For F-16 Sales To Turkiye- Although President Biden Can Approve Unilaterally In The Interests Of National Security.
For President Biden, Question Is Which Is More Important If He Cannot Have Both: Support From Four Members Of The United States Senate Or Doing What He Said He Believes.
President Erdogan Appreciates That Unlikely Ukraine Will Become A Member Of NATO While Any (Including Him And President Biden) Of The Current NATO Member Heads Of State And Heads Of Government Are In Office- Along With Ukraine President Zelensky And Russian Federation President Putin. There Is A Process And That Process Will Not Be Abridged Regardless Of The Endless Tantrums From The President Of Ukraine. And About His Threats Not To Attend The NATO Summit In Vilnius…. Then Stay Home.
Important For Turkiye’s Role In Negotiations Relating To The Russian Federation-Ukraine War And Resolution Of The Russian Federation-Ukraine War, That NATO Membership For Ukraine Not Be Viewed Personally- As A Punitive Measure Against President Putin And A Reward For President Zelensky. It’s About The Future- And The Future Will Not Look As The Present.
Both President Zelensky And President Putin Visiting Turkiye Reinforces That Turkiye Will Be The Location, And President Erdogan Will Be The Host, Of Russian Federation-Ukraine Negotiations. This Has Never Been An Unknown Likely Outcome.
For Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of the Republic of Turkiye (2014- ), who was re-elected on 28 May 2023 to a final five-year term, the expanded war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine has become a sixteen-month test of his political skills- both domestically and globally.
On 24 February 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded and further invaded the territory of Ukraine in what Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation (2000-2008 and 2012- ), defined as a Special Military Operation [SMO] then on 22 December 2022 he redefined as a war. The initial invasion of Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation was in part from the territory of Belarus.
The war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine did not commence on 24 February 2022. The roots began their trajectories on 20 February 2014 when the armed forces of the Russian Federation invaded the Crimean Peninsula and the area known as the Donbas Region (Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast).
The Russian Federation-Ukraine war has provided the government of Turkiye with commercial, economic, financial, humanitarian, military, and political opportunities. To date, President Erdogan has successfully exploited these opportunities- extracting the desired whether directly or indirectly connected. These include exporting weapons to Ukraine while importing fuels, investments, and visitors from the Russian Federation.
Simultaneously, there have been negatively impactful results from certain domestic policies implemented by the government of Turkiye, some of which were focused upon seeking political benefits while testing the viability ranges of traditionally accepted fiscal and monetary orthodoxy.
Most members of NATO believed in 2022 and continue to believe in 2023 that neither the Republic of Finland nor the Kingdom of Sweden should have been required to do anything more than seek membership in NATO. Most members of NATO believe that the government of Turkiye connected the issue of ascension of Finland and Sweden with not only extraneous issues, but an attempt to alter their constitutional and legal framework so they would resemble the government of Turkiye. The capitals of Helsinki and Stockholm have thus far demonstrated elasticity.
The government of Turkiye, whose taxpayers fund the second-largest armed forces in NATO, want re-integration into the F-35 aircraft program from which it was exiled due to the purchase of the S-400 missile system from the government of the Russian Federation. Turkiye-based companies were also contributing to the parts manufacturing process for the F-35 aircraft program. The government of Turkiye also wants to purchase new F-16 aircraft, as well as, purchase upgrades for existing F-16 aircraft.
The Biden-Harris Administration (2021- ) supports the purchases and upgrades for the F-16 aircraft. Members of the United States Congress can object to the purchases- and thus far the relevant members of the United States Senate have done so. They have connected the purchases of new F-16 aircraft and upgrades for existing F-16 aircraft to decisions by the government of Turkiye relating to human rights, media rights, women’s rights, armed forces of Turkiye activities in Syria, and Turkiye’s public and private sector engagement with the public and private sector in the Russian Federation.
The Government Of Turkiye Approving Finland For NATO Membership Was Far More Important Today Than Is Approving Sweden Membership In NATO.
The ascension of Republic of Finland to membership in NATO was more important to fast-track than is the ascension of the Republic of Sweden for one reason: Finland shares an 830-mile border with the Russian Federation. Sweden does not have a direct border with the Russian Federation.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia. The Kingdom of Sweden awaits approval from the governments of the Republic of Hungary and the Republic of Turkiye.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was implemented on 27 July 2022 from negotiations by the government of the Russian Federation, government of Turkiye, government of Ukraine, and the New York, New York-based United Nations (UN). The most recent extension expires on 17 July 2023.
“The Joint Coordination Centre was established under the Black Sea Grain Initiative in Istanbul on 27 July 2022. It comprises senior representatives from the Russian Federation, Türkiye, Ukraine and United Nations and its role is to enable the safe transportation, by merchant ships, of grain and other foodstuffs and fertilizers from three key Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea to the rest of the world.” The first shipment of over 26,000 tons of Ukrainian food under a Black Sea Grain Initiative was cleared to proceed on 3 August, towards its destination in Lebanon. LINK: https://www.un.org/en/black-sea-grain-initiative/vessel-movements
In June 2023 reported by both governments with expected denials by both governments of military operations surrounding and within the Black Sea, which has borders with the Bulgaria (EU member), Georgia, Romania (EU and NATO member), Russian Federation, Turkiye (NATO member), and Ukraine.
The renewal of the BSGI will be another test of diplomacy President Erdogan. He will advocate to his fellow NATO member (and those who are members of the twenty-seven country European Union) heads of state and heads of government to re-authorize Moscow, Russian Federation-based Rosselkhozbank (Agrobank) to connect to Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (S.W.I.F.T.) to facilitate payments of authorized agricultural commodity exports from the Russian Federation. He will obtain cooperation from President Putin and President Zelensky for the release from ports in Ukraine vessels and crews with connectivity to Turkiye-based companies. He will seek from President Putin a two-year renewal of the BSGI, but will accept one-year- or perhaps to 24 February 2024. He will seek an increase in the number of BSGI inspectors from the government of the Russian Federation, UN, and government of Ukraine.
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