Turkish parliament to ratify Sweden’s NATO accession, but why?

TURKEY - In Brief 25 Oct 2023 by Atilla Yesilada

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I’d given up on positive developments in Turkey’s relations with US and NATO, because on 21 October President Erdogan flatly refused to present the legislation needed to ratify Swedish accession, on account of American disrespect for his various requests, Quran burning incidents and the refusal by Swedish judiciary to allow extradition of alleged PKK and Gulenist militants. His sidekick and MHP leader Bahceli is still on record for being against ratification. What has changed? There are several theories but the most plausible one, which I checked through two sources, is that Erdogan had already made up his mind to let Sweden in, but the arrival of US aircraft carriers in East Med, the downing of a Turkish drone over Syrian skies by an American jet, and of course the Israeli-HAMAS war made him delay the timing. A less plausible but devastatingly negative theory is that Erdogan remaining anti-accession, but sending the legislation to the Grand Assembly to be struck down to reduce pressure on him and punt the ball to a different quadrant. Or, MHP and the entire opposition may unite against the legislation, on which any opposition party is yet to comment. In other words, I can’t be certain that the Grand Assembly will quickly debate and ratify Swedish accession. Bahceli’s ambivalent attitude adds to my concerns. Nevertheless, well informed sources claim that his advisors told him the necessity of Swedish accession as a gate opener for foreign financial investment and any improvement in relations with EU. At the end I’d speculate that Swedish accession will be approved with a 80% likelihood within two weeks. Needless to say, delaying it by letting the legislation rot in par...