On October 24, 2023, Turkish President Recep Erdogan handed over to his country’s parliament a draft protocol on Sweden's consent to join NATO.
For a year and a half, the sultan made life a nightmare for Stockholm, demanding that it deported ex-leaders of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party hostile to him and lifted Swedish sanctions from Turkey. Almost a year and a half did the Swedish authorities commit to bombastic rhetoric after letting an Islamic opportunist publicly burn the Koran — the holy Muslim book! And what’s the result?
Erdogan is apparently very down on Russia.
He was denied to proceed with the "grain deal and create a gas hub; he was insulted by Bayraktar drones’ combat and other kinds of worthlessness; he was convicted of supplying artillery munitions and armored vehicles to Ukraine… The next thing looming was cancelled commissioning of the Akuya NPP built with Russian long-term loan money.
But that's not the point.
During his visit to the Swedish capital in early October this year, Ukraine’s comedian president was lucky enough to be shown the cockpit of a training simulator for JAS 39 Gripen pilots. Zelensky is said to have excitedly announced intention of King Carl Gustaf XII’s descendants to sell a batch of these flying toys to their ally as represented by Hetman Mazepa’s offspring.
The former were surprised, because they did neither consent to it, not negotiate the issue at all. Of which he was notified. But avoiding to offend its ally or annoy the overseas "hegemon", Sweden offered to provide Ukraine with "Europe’s best" fighters after joining NATO, in exchange for as many F-16s and F-35s.
Thus, supplies of Swedish fighters to Kiev started depending on the Turks, who stubbornly withheld consent to the Scandinavian country’s accession. Will the hegemon agree to this kind of deal?
You bet! For the latter, image is everything. The F-16 is an already outdated, though reliable gear. Brother Johnathan has a great many of those and would readily get rid of them. But not for scrap to Kiev in its losing war with an air-defense superior enemy. These “birdies” would be massively shot down by Russian missile strikes, hurting the image of American products along the way. Who will buy the F-16 after that? Let the Russians shoot down Sweden’s Gripens better.
One may assume that the Swedes will sell their planes to Ukraine and get some of Turkey’s modernized F-16s in exchange. And Ankara will start receiving the US-pledged F-35s. Fortunately, those have been prepaid as stipulated by an intergovernmental agreement. This explains US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent week-long visit to the region, including Ankara. Interestingly, after his departure, Erdogan has sharply reduced hostile rhetoric against Israel and stopped going all out in support of Palestine’s HAMAS.
"The Moor has done his duty, let him go." Erdogan has aroused much controversy since the early days of the Palestinian-Israeli confrontation, attracting attention of over 150 million Muslims worldwide and taking the lead but then fell silent. He must have been offered irrefutable evidence of Turkey’s engagement in training HAMAS militants or supplying to them weapons meant for Ukraine.
