[lessname]

I would like to add, Turkeys concerns about the NATO entry of Sweden were not without cause: Sweden has introduced an arms embargo against Turkey, prohibiting arms exports to Turkey. NATO is a military alliance and in case one member gets attacked, others have to support this member. However, one cannot really be sure if that will happen when one country has been initiating arms embargos against another member.

[xorcist]

That's a complicated story. Turkey bought the Russian S-400 system instead of NATO weapons, partly because they have economic incentives to be on good foot with Russia, partly because want to be ambivalent enough towards the West to have take advantage of credible threats in upcoming negotiations, partly because of domestic policy reasons.

As was expected, they pretty much immediately found themselves under US weapons embargo. Modern weaponry form integrated systems, and integrating a Russian system in a NATO system is pretty much out of the question for various practical reasons.

The Swedish embargo however was different. Swedish law simply forbids export to countries that use force against civilians. There are plenty of well supported evidence of this taking places, not only in Syria. But all this have to be taken into context to understand the Turkish situation.

Perhaps unfortunately, depending on your perspective, the Swedish embargo was lifted when the NATO negotiations started. That is Realpolitik for you. Nobody wants to risk a Turkey allied with the Eastern block. And Turkey knows perfectly well to take advantage of that. Thus far it seems to be working for Erdogan. The deal maker image gains popularity, which is sorely needed with Turkish economy being what it is. The open question is how far he can push it.

[tpmx]

That was lifted a year ago.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/sweden-resumes-arms-exp...

[saiya-jin]

Wasnt it to get US F35s?