The Hungarian government is in favor of Sweden joining NATO and will soon schedule a ratification vote in the parliament, Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced on Wednesday.
The move will allow Stockholm to become a member of the US-led military bloc after almost two years of delays. Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022, citing the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but ran into opposition from Türkiye and Hungary due to ongoing disputes with the two states. The bloc’s rules require unanimous consent before it can accept new member states. “Just finished a phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg,” Orban said on X (formerly Twitter). “I reaffirmed that the Hungarian government supports the NATO membership of Sweden. I also stressed that we will continue to urge the Hungarian National Assembly to vote in favor of Sweden’s accession and conclude the ratification at the first possible opportunity.” Budapest has accused Stockholm of telling “blatant lies” about Hungarian democracy as part of an ongoing dispute within the EU. As of Wednesday, the Hungarian parliament has not put up the ratification vote on its docket. Turkish lawmakers voted to approve Sweden’s membership on Tuesday, sending the ratification bill to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s desk. Ankara had serious differences with Stockholm over human rights, terrorism, and arms trade, which interfered with NATO plans to have Sweden and Finland join the bloc together. Both Scandinavian countries abandoned their longstanding policy of non-alignment after Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine, citing it as a threat to their security. When Finland officially joined the bloc in April 2023, NATO doubled the length of its border with Russia. Moscow stated that it had no issue with either country until then, but would have to react if they join NATO. Russia has insisted that the bloc’s expansion eastward, which began in 1999, is a threat to Russian national security and one of the root causes of the Ukraine conflict. Orban has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine and said he would block any attempts by Kiev to join NATO or the EU, as that would mean “bringing the war” into both blocs.
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The country’s accession will now need to be approved in a parliamentary vote. Fuat Oktay, the head of the foreign affairs commission, has told reporters that the parliament’s speaker would only decide on timing. Following the committee's approval, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Sweden welcomed the decision in a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter), writing that he was “looking forward to joining NATO.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also welcomed the move, and called on Türkiye and Hungary to “complete their ratifications as soon as possible. Sweden’s membership will make NATO stronger.”
NATO requires that all of its members must agree unanimously on expansion, and Türkiye and Hungary are the only countries that have been standing in Stockholm's way. Hungary claims that Swedish politicians have told “blatant lies” about the condition of Hungary’s democracy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last week that there was “no great willingness” to approve Sweden’s bid; however, Türkiye has been seen as the main NATO member preventing the Nordic country’s inclusion in the military alliance. In May 2022, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan objected to both Swedish and Finnish requests to join the military bloc, complaining that the Nordic nations were embracing terrorists. Türkiye later ratified Finland's bid in April, but kept Sweden waiting, demanding more security concessions. Ankara said the Nordic country needed to take more steps to crack down on Kurdish militants. Stockholm penned a new anti-terrorism bill in response and said that it had upheld its part of a deal signed last year. Sweden and NATO members Finland, Canada and the Netherlands also took steps to lift arms embargoes imposed on Türkiye. Earlier this month, Erdogan openly linked the ratification of Sweden’s membership to the US Congress’ approval of a Turkish request to purchase 40 F-16 fighter jets. The White House has backed the Turkish request but there has been opposition in Congress to military sales to Türkiye. Türkiye’s heel-dragging has baffled some of the country’s fellow NATO members, who were swift to accept Sweden and Finland into the bloc. Unlike its allies, Ankara seeks to maintain a neutral position towards the conflict in Ukraine, calling on the parties to end the hostilities, but also criticizing Western sanctions on Russia. In September Erdogan told PBS, a US broadcaster, that in his opinion, Russia and the West are “equally” reliable and trustworthy. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk to pick Türkiye as the location for his electric vehicle company’s next gigafactory, according to state-owned Turkish news agency Anadolu.
During the meeting on Sunday, Erdogan described Ankara’s “technological breakthroughs as well as the ‘Digital Türkiye’ vision and the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” the country’s communications directorate said in a statement cited by Anadolu. Besides urging Musk to establish Tesla’s next factory in Türkiye, Erdogan also described other “opportunities for collaboration with SpaceX may arise through the steps taken and to be taken as part of Türkiye’s space program.” The US entrepreneur has yet to comment on the results of the talks. He was seen entering the Turkish House skyscraper across the street of the UN headquarters on Sunday, carrying his son on Sunday.Tesla currently has six ‘gigafactories’ in the US, Germany, and China, and is building a seventh in Mexico. The automaker could pick a location for its next major production facility by the end of 2023, Musk indicated earlier this year. Last month, the company expressed interest in building a factory in India to produce a low-cost EV model, after Musk pledged significant investment in India following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US in June. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on winning a third term in office on Sunday. Putin thanked Erdogan for his “personal contribution” to strengthening relations between Russia and Türkiye.
“Your victory in the elections was a natural result of your selfless work as head of the Republic of Türkiye, and is clear evidence of the Turkish people's support for your efforts to strengthen state sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy,” Putin wrote in a message to Erdogan. “We highly appreciate your personal contribution to the strengthening of friendly Russian-Turkish relations and mutually beneficial cooperation,” Putin continued, noting the construction of Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant and the creation of a new gas hub as two significant joint projects. “From the bottom of my heart I wish you new successes…as well as good health and well-being” Putin concluded. Erdogan declared victory on Sunday night after beating challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a runoff election for the presidency. With more than 99% of ballots counted, Erdogan led Kilicdaroglu by 55.12% of the vote to 47.88%, according to the latest tally from Türkiye’s Anadolu Agency. The Turkish president’s foreign policy – described by Putin as “independent” and Erdogan himself as “balanced” – has seen Türkiye strengthen ties with Russia and China while pushing its NATO allies for concessions, as Erdogan did when he demanded Sweden and Finland lift arms embargoes on his country and deport terror suspects before he would sign off on their accession to the alliance. Türkiye is the sole NATO member that has not imposed sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, and Erdogan has taken a neutral stance on the conflict. Under his leadership, Türkiye hosted peace talks between Moscow and Kiev last year, and brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The relationship has not been without its difficulties. Despite Erdogan’s declaration that Türkiye wants a peace deal in Ukraine “as soon as possible,” Ankara has sold Bayraktar TB2 strike and reconnaissance drones and Kipri mine-resistant armored vehicles to Kiev, prompting a rebuke from Moscow this week. The world is not doing enough to end the conflict in Ukraine, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told journalists in New York on Thursday. International leaders should focus on diplomacy and talk more with both Moscow and Kiev to put an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia in a peaceful way, he said. Ankara has always “believed in the power of dialogue and diplomacy,” Erdogan said, pointing to Turkey’s mediating efforts in both the Istanbul grain deal between Moscow and Kiev, and the recent prisoner exchange between the two sides. He added that individual efforts of world leaders are not enough.
“The UN could not end the war, could not stop the bloodshed and it could not find a solution to the energy and food crisis,” he said, calling on other world leaders to join Turkey in its diplomatic efforts. Erdogan noted that he would call Putin and Zelensky and continue his “telephone diplomacy.” There must be a “joint effort of all world leaders,” and “everyone” should be talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, to “open the door” for diplomacy, he said. Any “negative approaches” to the two leaders will “not bring the result we expect,” but will only bring more death and destruction, Erdogan warned. Since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the US and its allies in Europe and elsewhere have supported Kiev through financial and military aid. Moscow has repeatedly warned that arms deliveries to Kiev will only prolong the conflict. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are among the few Western leaders who have remained in contact with Putin since the start of the operation, though their efforts so far have not brought about any diplomatic breakthroughs. Turkey has maintained contact with both Moscow and Kiev throughout the hostilities. It condemned the use of force by Russia, but refused to take part in the international sanctions on Moscow. Ankara was also involved in the UN-brokered deal to allow the export of grain from Ukrainian ports, which was agreed on between Russia and Ukraine in July. Earlier this week, Erdogan told US news program PBS NewsHour that Moscow seeks to end the conflict as soon as possible. He also said that Russia cannot be allowed to keep the territories it has gained since February. When Turkish finance minister Nureddin Nebati this week announced plans to encourage households to convert their gold holdings into Turkish liras in a bid to shore up Turkish central bank reserves, he was targeting people like Esra G. Ms. G., whose last name has been abbreviated to preserve her anonymity, has had a life-long troubled relationship with gold. When she was barely three years old, her distaste for it as an adornment was already so strong that she dumped all her gold rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings into the Bosporus.
Nonetheless, Ms. G. grew up to be an avid collector of gold, including an assortment of five- and 10-gram Credit Suisse coins. As a young woman, Ms. G. preferred antique silver jewelry and wouldn’t wear gold but kept her gold collection under her pillow. Turkey's yearly inflation climbed by the fastest pace in 19 years, jumping to 36.08% in December, official data showed on Monday. The Turkish Statistical Institute said the consumer price index increased by 13.58% in December from the previous month, further eroding peoples' purchasing power. The yearly increase in food prices was 43.8%, the data showed.
The yearly inflation rate was the highest since September 2002. Inflation has been rising in the country while the Turkish lira has been slumping to record lows after the country's central bank _ under pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan _ cut a key interest rate by 5 percentage points in September. The weakened lira has made imports, fuel and everyday items more expensive and has left many in the country of some 84 million struggling to buy food and other basic goods. Many have been purchasing foreign currencies and gold to protect their savings. Last month, Erdogan announced measures to safeguard lira deposits against volatility after the Turkish currency hit an all-time low of 18.36 against the dollar. The lira rebounded following the announcement but has since lost some of those gains. The lira depreciated by around 44% against the dollar last year. Erdogan insists on lowering borrowing costs to boost growth, even though economists argue that higher interest rates is the way to tame soaring prices. Also on Monday, Erdogan announced that Turkey's exports increased by 32.9% in 2021, to reach ''a record'' $225.4 billion. Addressing a group of exporters in a televised speech, Erdogan said the figure amounted to a 7.8% narrowing of Turkey's trade deficit. Turkey would revise its export target for 2022 to $250 billion, he added. Meanwhile, the independent Inflation Research Group, made up of academics and former government officials, put the yearly inflation rate at a much higher 83%. It said consumer prices rose by 19.35% in December compared with November. One hundred trillion dollars—that’s 100,000,000,000,000—is the largest denomination of currency ever issued. 1 The Zimbabwean government issued the Z$100 trillion bill in early 2009, among the last in a series of ever higher denominations distributed as inflation eroded purchasing power. When Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980, Z$2, Z$5, Z$10 and Z$20 denominations circulated, replaced three decades later by bills in the thousands and ultimately in the millions and trillions as the government sought to prop up a weakening economy amid spiralling inflation. Shortly after the Z$100 trillion note began circulating, the Zimbabwean dollar was officially abandoned in favour of foreign currencies. From 2007 to 2008, the local legal tender lost more than 99.9 percent of its value (Hanke 2008). This marked a reversal of fortune from independence, when the value of one Zimbabwe dollar equalled US$1.54. Zimbabwe’s extreme and uncontrollable inflation made it the first—and so far only—country in the 21st century to experience a hyperinflationary episode. Hyperinflation devastates people and countries. Zimbabwe, once considered the breadbasket of Africa, was reduced to the continent’s beggar within a few years; its citizens were pushed into poverty and often forced to emigrate. The country’s experience shows how a relatively self-sustaining nation at independence fell victim to out-of-control inflation and the severe erosion of wealth. The causes of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, its effects and how it was stopped are particularly instructive. In his seminal work, Phillip Cagan defined hyperinflation as beginning when monthly inflation rates initially exceed 50 percent. It ends in the month before the rate declines below 50 percent, where it must remain for at least a year (Cagan 1956). Zimbabwe entered the hyperinflationary era in March 2007; the period ended when the nation abandoned its currency in 2009 (Chart 1). Bouts of hyperinflation are mostly accompanied by rapidly increasing money supply needed to finance large fiscal deficits arising from war, revolution, the end of empires and the establishment of new states. Hyperinflation, as Cagan defined it, initially appeared during the French Revolution, when the monthly rate peaked at 143 percent in December 1795. More than a century elapsed before hyperinflation appeared again. During the 20th century, hyperinflation occurred 28 times, often associated with the monetary chaos involving two world wars and the collapse of communism (Bernholz 2003). Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation of 2007–09 represents the world’s 30th occurrence as well as the continent’s second bout (after a 1991–94 episode in the Congo).
It is widely expected that a further cut of 100 basis points to 14 percent will follow this week. The policy differs from all economic textbooks. Normally, policymakers try to curb inflation with interest rate hikes. The inflation rate in Turkey is already above 20 percent. Turks took to the streets last weekend to protest the rising cost of living.
Lora Smith ANKARA, August 12 -- The Turkish state can’t tolerate the gains by people of North and East Syria, or the democratic system they built, so they aim to invade the area under the guise of a “safe zone”. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu continued to issue threats of invasion against North and East Syria. Cavuşoğlu said: “What we say about the east of the Euphrates is this: We will either clear the area together, or Turkey will enter and clear away the terrorists. Like they were cleared from Afrin, like ISIS was cleared from Jarablus, we will clear the east of the Euphrates from YPG and PKK. Whatever the price may be. There is no change in our resolve here. We won’t let the US delay things like Manbij. We say this clearly, and we told them the same.” The Turkish state can’t tolerate the gains by people of North and East Syria, or the democratic system they built, so they aim to invade the area under the guise of a “safe zone”. North and East Syrian officials see Turkey’s insistence on a 32 km deep safe zone as an attempt to massacre the peoples of the region and to invade the area as a whole, and counter-propose patrols along the border under supervision by the international coalition, outside residential areas. North and East Syrian officials warn that a possible Turkish state attack will make the control of thousands of ISIS members in prisons difficult and risk subjecting the region and the world to terrorist attacks. They also say they will resist to the end. |
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