Why Erdogan of Turkey is still blocking Sweden's NATO bid
Turkey's president says NATO should NOT bet on him approving Swedish membership of the military alliance before July's summit. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country's attitude to Sweden's accession was "not positive," as Sweden hadn't yet fully addressed his security concerns. Turkey accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward militant Kurdish groups. His comments come as officials from NATO, Sweden, Finland and Ankara meet in Ankara to address Turkey's concerns. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says some progress has been made.
At the present time, NATO has 31 member countries. These countries, called NATO Allies, are sovereign states that come together through NATO to discuss political and security issues and make collective decisions by consensus.
NATO was created by 12 countries from Europe and North America on 4 April 1949.
Since then, 19 more countries have joined NATO through nine rounds of enlargement (in 1952, 1955, 1982, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2017, 2020 and 2023).
Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty sets out how countries can join the Alliance. It states that membership is open to any "European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area".
Any decision to invite a country to join the Alliance is taken by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's principal political decision-making body, on the basis of consensus among all Allies.
DW News shows that as coronavirus Covid-19 cases and deaths soar, Turkey has entered a so-called full lockdown. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has instructed people to stay home for nearly 3 weeks.
Al Jazeera English shows that a nationwide weekend curfew was in effect in Turkey to try to stop a sharp rise in new coronavirus infections. At least 30,000 daily cases were reported on that week. More restrictions were introduced in an effort to contain the outbreak. Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu reports from Istanbul, Turkey.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey is part of the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
The first case in Turkey was recorded on March 11, 2020, when a local returned home from a trip to Europe. The first death due to COVID-19 in the country occurred on 15 March, 2020. Turkey has stood out from the rest of Europe by not ordering a legal lockdown. The government kept many businesses open, and allowed companies to set their own guidelines regarding workers.
As of 14 March 2021, Turkey has 2,879,390 confirmed cases, 2,701,076 recoveries, 29,489 deaths, and a death rate of 343 per million people, the 66th highest rate globally.
The resulting wave of infections never came close to overwhelming the Turkish health system, which has the highest number of intensive care units in the world at 46.5 beds per 100,000 people (compared to 9.6 in Greece, 11.6 in France, and 12.6 in Italy).
As of March 1, 2021, Turkey's observed case-fatality rate stands at 1.06%. This low (compared to other countries) case-fatality rate has generated various explanations including the relative rarity of nursing homes, favorable demographics, long legacy of contact tracing, high number of intensive care units, universal health care, and a lockdown regime that led to a higher proportion of positive cases among working-age adults.
The Turkey coronavirus death toll has reached 3,952. Turkey has been in a "steady recovery" in week five since the first COVID-19 case was reported. The health minister says that the pandemic is under control. About 70% of total Coronavirus Covid-19 patients have recovered so far. "Although our daily test capacity [for COVID-19] has reached 50,000, there is no need for such an amount due to the decline in new cases," Fahrettin Koca said.
Fahrettin Koca is a Turkish physician and politician. He is the Minister of Health of Turkey.
The following information is from the COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University:
Countries with most deaths from Coronavirus Covid-19:
83,715 USA
33,263 United Kingdom
31,106 Italy
27,077 France
26,920 Spain
12,703 Brazil
08,843 Belgium
07,859 Germany
06,783 Iran
05,581 Netherlands
05,410 Canada
04,637 China
03,952 Turkey
03,926 Mexico
03,460 Sweden
Countries with most confirmed cases of Coronavirus Covid-19:
1,388,002 USA
242,271 Russia
230,985 United Kingdom
228,030 Spain
222,104 Italy
181,518 Brazil
178,184 France
174,098 Germany
143,114 Turkey
112,725 Iran
