NATO: Sweden’s NATO Bid Is in Trouble. “Before submitting their NATO applications, Sweden and Finland had surveyed alliance members; no one spoke up to object. Then they submitted their applications, and Turkey blocked them. ‘Unless Sweden and Finland clearly show that they will stand in solidarity with Turkey on fundamental issues, especially in the fight against terrorism, we will not approach these countries’ NATO membership positively,’ Recep Tayyip Erdogan told NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg last month. The Turkish president’s beef mostly seems to concern Sweden, which has long hosted Kurdish refugees (some of them of the militant variety). One former Peshmerga fighter, Amineh Kakabaveh, is even a member of Sweden’s parliament. Erdogan wants Sweden to curtail its links to Kurdish groups and end its suspension of arms exports to Turkey.”