Turkey’s Ministry of Treasury and Finance said the decision was “based on the existence of reasonable grounds” that they committed acts falling within the scope of the law on preventing the financing of terrorism.

The list included 3 organisations each from Germany and Switzerland, where there is a large Kurdish diaspora. It also named 2 organisations each from Australia, Japan and Italy.

Other affected organizations spanned across Austria, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Sweden, Norway, Iraq-Syria.

Sweden’s NATO Ratification

The list included one organisation from Sweden, namely the Insamlingsstiftelsen Kurdiska Roda Solen, whose social media accounts say is a humanitarian aid organization.

Both Sweden and Finland requested to join NATO in May last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan raised objections at the time to both requests over what he said was the Nordic nations’ protection of those whom Turkey deems terrorists, as well as their defence trade embargoes. Turkey endorsed Finland’s bid in April, but has kept Sweden waiting.

Turkey has demanded that Sweden take more steps to rein in local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.

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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told NATO counterparts on Tuesday he was working hard on Sweden’s NATO ratification which is currently being debated by the Turkish parliament and provided a likely timeline of before year-end for the Nordic country to formally join the alliance, a senior State Department official said.

A Turkish defence ministry official said a ground operation into Syria was one option for Turkey, which has previously mounted several incursions into northern Syria against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The YPG is a central element of U.S.-allied forces in a coalition against Islamic State. Support for the YPG by the United States and other allies, including France, has strained ties with Ankara.

Turkey says the YPG is a terrorist organisation, closely tied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group. Turkey’s Western allies list the PKK as terrorist group, but not the YPG.

Born In Syrian War

The YPG, or the People’s Protection Units, emerged as a powerful armed group during the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. It established a foothold in the north as Syrian government forces withdrew to put down the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad elsewhere. It is affiliated to the main Syrian Kurdish faction, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), and has a female counterpart, the YPJ.

YPG control was initially concentrated in three predominantly Kurdish regions of northern Syria – known in Kurdish as Rojava. The area is home to roughly 2 million Kurds and Kurdish-led authorities have established autonomous governing bodies there since the start of the Syrian war.

A.U.S. Ally

The YPG’s influence expanded as it allied with the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, becoming the spearhead of a broader group, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which played a key role defeating the jihadists across Syria.

As Islamic State retreated, the area of SDF control grew, and now accounts for around one quarter of Syria, including oil fields and several mostly Arab areas.

The U.S.-led coalition says it continues to support the SDF.

Why Does Turkey See The YPG As A Threat?

Turkey views the PYD and YPG as indistinguishable from the PKK, which launched an insurgency in Turkey for Kurdish political and cultural rights in 1984.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Turkey’s Kurdish minority amounts to 15-20% of its total population of around 85 million, mostly living in eastern and southeastern areas bordering Syria. Wary of separatism, Turkey views the PYD’s Syrian foothold as a national security threat.

The YPG is heavily influenced by the ideas of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in jail in Turkey since 1999, convicted of treason.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

Western states, including Turkey’s NATO allies, do not view the YPG as a terrorist group. U.S. support for the SDF has been a source of tension with Turkey for years.

With support from Syrian Arab insurgent groups, Turkey’s previous incursions into northern Syria have brought swathes of territory under its control, including the Afrin region, which was previously one of three main Kurdish areas.

Tense Ties With Damascus

Syria’s Baathist state systematically persecuted the Kurds before the war. Yet the YPG and Damascus have broadly stayed out of each other’s way during the conflict, notwithstanding occasional clashes. They also have shared foes, including the Sunni Arab groups backed by Turkey.

The YPG has allowed the government to keep a foothold in its areas, including control of Qamishli airport.

Kurdish leaders say their aim is regional autonomy within a decentralized Syria, not independence. But Damascus opposes Kurdish autonomy demands, and talks between the sides for a political settlement have made no progress.

Kurdish Groups In The Region

The YPG and PYD are the main political grouping of Kurds in Syria but there are Kurdish groups with different loyalties spread across the region.

The ruling party of the Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq has close ties with Turkey, which it depends on to export oil, but its rival partner in government is more critical of Ankara.

The PKK has bases in the mountain ranges of northern Iraq.

The rifts had been a source of alarm to Western countries, and especially the United States, which has backed both factions, most recently in the fight against Islamic State.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party (PUK) ministers returned to cabinet meetings for the first time since a rare assassination in the city of Erbil in October last year, according to three Kurdish government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) which has long tussled for influence with its junior coalition partner in government, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by the Talabani clan, have largely kept a lid on mistrust since the war.

But the KDP blamed the PUK for the brazen assassination of intelligence officer Hawker Abdullah Rasoul, triggering a series of incidents that have strained the power-sharing arrangement.

The PUK has strongly denied the accusations, saying they are politically motivated.

Political relations deteriorated to the point where PUK ministers boycotted meetings of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Last week, Barzani and Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani met for the first time since the assassination and agreed to work together to overcome their differences, according to statements posted on their Twitter accounts, along with a photo of them looking at each other and smiling.

The breakthrough came days after a U.S. foreign ministry delegation, including Barbara Leaf, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, visited Erbil and met with leaders from both parties.

Analysts have said the rift is a major distraction from what the government should be doing to address public service problems and high unemployment in a region rich in oil and gas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used to send shockwaves to Beijing with his outspoken support of China’s Uighur minority, a predominantly Turkic-speaking Muslim group in Xinjiang that is subject to horrific human rights violations. “The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide,” Erdogan said in 2009, when he was prime minister. And it wasn’t just empty words: Turkey has been a safe haven for Uighurs fleeing persecution ever since the Chinese Communist Party took control of Xinjiang in 1949 and hosts one of the largest Uighur diaspora populations in the world.

Then came a sudden, unexpected switch. In 2016, Turkey arrested Abdulkadir Yapcan, a prominent Uighur political activist living in the country since 2001 and initiated his extradition. In 2017, Turkey and China signed an agreement allowing extradition even if the purported offense is only illegal in one of the two countries. Since early 2019, Turkey has arrested hundreds of Uighurs and sent them to deportation centers. And Erdogan’s remarks have turned diplomatically bland, just like any Uighur-related coverage in newspapers controlled by Erdogan and his supporters.

Erdogan’s remarkable U-turn has a simple explanation: His regime and Turkey’s economy are in crisis. With few other friends, Ankara is counting on Beijing to patch things up, and that requires adherence to Beijing’s talking points. Erdogan’s problems are mounting: Turkey’s economy has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, which has devastated its primary economic sector, tourism. As Erdogan tightens his control over the central bank and the courts, foreign reserves are shrinking, the trade deficit is rising, and the Turkish lira is plunging. Once seen as a model of democracy and economic development in the region, Turkey is now an authoritarian country; on the Liberal Democracy Index compiled by the University of Gothenburg’s V-Dem Institute, Turkey now ranks among the bottom 20, closer to China than the developed countries to which it once aspired. Western companies and investors, once attracted to Turkey’s fast-growing economy and population, are staying away.

China’s appetite for expansion into Western Asia and Europe offers Erdogan a lifeline. Cooperation has expanded exponentially: Since 2016, the two countries have signed 10 bilateral agreements including on health and nuclear energy. China is now Turkey’s second-largest import partner after Russia. China has invested $3 billion in Turkey between 2016 and 2019 and intends to double that by the end of next year. Cash flowing in from China has become critical for Erdogan’s regime and has strengthened the president’s hand at crucial moments.

When the lira’s value dropped by more than 40 percent in 2018, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China provided the Turkish government $3.6 billion in loans for ongoing energy and transportation projects. In June 2019, in the wake of Istanbul municipal elections that indicated crumbling support for Erdogan, China’s central bank transferred $1 billion—the largest cash inflow under a swap agreement between the two countries’ central banks that was last renewed in 2012. As Erdogan’s popularity has dwindled this year amid the coronavirus crisis and a severe currency shortage, China came to the rescue again in June. Beijing is now allowing Turkish companies to use the Chinese yuan to make trade payments, allowing them easier access to Chinese liquidity—another step up in financial cooperation.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers Turkey a source of fresh cash—and Beijing a strategic foothold on the Mediterranean Sea.

As part of the infrastructure-building initiative, Turkey completed a railroad from Kars in eastern Turkey via Tbilisi, Georgia, to Baku, Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea, from where it links to transportation networks to China. In 2015, a Chinese consortium bought 65 percent of Turkey’s third-largest container terminal, Kumport, in Istanbul, acquiring a pivotal position in container transportation. Chinese investors also helped salvage Erdogan’s own poorly managed megaprojects. In January 2020, a Chinese consortium bought 51 percent of the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge connecting Europe and Asia across the Bosporus after revenue projections failed and the Italian-Turkish consortium controlling the bridge wanted out.

The BRI projects help shore up Erdogan in other ways. They have reinforced Turkey’s strategy to assert itself as a transportation corridor and have boosted Erdogan’s political brand by promoting him as someone who can develop infrastructure, attract funds, and undertake large-scale projects. And the cash keeps coming: This year, China’s Export and Credit Insurance Corp. committed up to $5 billion for Turkey’s Wealth Fund, to be used for BRI projects. The fund’s limited transparency and accountability raise further concerns about where the money is going and Turkey’s ability to repay.

Energy, another sector whose development has been key to Erdogan’s power, has seen even greater investment under the BRI umbrella. China is providing $1.7 billion to build the Hunutlu coal-fired power plant on the Mediterranean Sea, projected to produce 3 percent of the country’s electricity when it is completed. Ankara plans to sign a deal with China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. to build Turkey’s third nuclear power plant.

Beyond infrastructure, Sino-Turkish cooperation involves deepening bilateral military and security ties, including in intelligence and cyberwarfare. Turkey’s Bora ballistic missile—modeled on the Chinese B-611 missile, introduced in 2017, and deployed in the Turkish military operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in May 2019—is a product of bilateral defense cooperation, as was the participation of Chinese military officers in Turkey’s Ephesus military exercise in 2018.

Huawei, which has been designated a national security threat in the United States and elsewhere due to its ties to the Chinese government and military, has no such opposition in Turkey. Its share in the Turkish market has grown from only 3 percent in 2017 to 30 percent in 2019. Allegations about Chinese use of telecommunications infrastructure for state surveillance and suppression are especially worrisome in Turkey, where the population relies on the internet and social media for information due to strict control of other media channels. Another Chinese technology company, ZTE, took over 48 percent of Netas, Turkey’s key telecommunications equipment manufacturer, in 2016. Netas manages pivotal projects including the new Istanbul Airport’s telecommunications and the digitalization of national health data.

For now, strengthening relations between China and Turkey appears to benefit both sides. China has found a highly strategic foothold in Turkey—a NATO member with a large market for energy, infrastructure, defense technology, and telecommunications at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. For Turkey and Erdogan, China provides desperately needed resources to fund high-profile megaprojects and maintain the veneer of development despite the crippling economic reality underneath. Just as importantly, Chinese cash helps Erdogan avoid seeking help from Western-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, which would require him to commit to reforms and other measures that could undermine his unfettered control over the country’s economy.

Article first published on ForeignPolicy.com.