International activist group Rise Up 4 Rojava held a demonstration in Helsinki against the Finnish government walking back a weapons export ban to Turkey, daily Yeni Özgür Politika reported on Tuesday.
Any weapons to be exported to Turkey will be used in “genocidal attacks against the people in Rojava and north and east Syria”, the activists said, using the Kurdish word for the region.
Activists also condemned the Finnish government for “capitulating” to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s demands so Ankara would remove its veto on Helsinki and Stockholm’s bids to join NATO. Any extradition of Kurdish activists would be “unacceptable”, they said.
The group accused Erdoğan of haggling over Kurds, urging Finland to “not sacrifice democracy or human rights in the face of Erdoğan’s dirty negotiations”.
Turkey has been holding off ratification of the two Nordic countries’ appeals to join the alliance, citing support for entities and individuals the country considers terrorist. Two main groups Erdoğan and other officials have cited are the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and followers of Fethullah Gülen, who Turkey holds responsible for the 15 July 2016 failed coup attempt.
Since the application in May, following Russia’s earlier invasion of Ukraine, Turkish officials have voiced strong objections to Sweden’s NATO membership while the tone has changed for Finland.
Last week, Finland issued to Turkey a commercial export licence for steel to be used for military armour, Agence France-Press reported, a first since all exports were halted in October 2019 due to concerns over Turkey’s military incursions into Kurdish-held northern Syria. The move came two days after Erdoğan slammed Sweden for a provocative burning of the Quran in Stockholm, and a day after Turkey postponed accession talks with both countries. The burning of Islam’s holy book was revealed later to have been funded by a right-wing journalist who had ties with Moscow.
On Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Turkey could evaluate Finland’s bid independently from Sweden, which also saw protesters hanging an Erdoğan effigy in previous weeks.
“It is a fair approach to set a difference between a problematic country and a less problematic one,” Çavuşoğlu said.
While Finnish officials openly said they were considering a separate bid, Monday also saw Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto announce the country’s decision to stick with Sweden, expressing hopes for a NATO greenlight in July, following Turkey’s presidential elections scheduled for May.
“We have underlined to all our future NATO partners, including Hungary and Turkey, that Finnish and Swedish security go together,” Haavisto told reporters.
