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MILITARY

One-fifth of Swedish military conscripts ‘fear for their lives’

One in five Swedish conscripts feared for their life while they were carrying out their compulsory military duty, a new study shows.

One-fifth of Swedish military conscripts 'fear for their lives'

When the Conscription Council (Värnpliktsrådet) asked the same question back in 2004, only 13 percent of conscripts reported believing the life was in danger, the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper reports.

But a new survey carried out this year involving 1,000 conscripts reveals the figure has increased to 21 percent.

“We haven’t been able to establish what caused the increase,” Oscar Rosén, chair of the Conscription Council, told the newspaper.

One theory is that recent cuts in military spending have led to reduced training on how to handle dangerous equipment and weapons.

“Having a service weapon is risky. You need a lot of training on how to handle a weapon,” said Rosén.

The survey also showed that 71 percent of conscripts who experienced safety lapses believed they were caused by negligence, while 27 percent attributed safety problems to their commanding officers.

Since 1995, 15 Swedish conscripts have died in accidents, with most fatalities occurring in connection with transport vehicles, according to SvD.

The problem appears to stem from a communication breakdown between commanders and conscripts when it comes to safety.

“Conscripts disregard safety when commanders aren’t around. We’re talking about just a few people, but it’s dangerous for many others,” said Rosén.

And while he admits that conscripts need to do a better job of following instructions, Rosén adds that commanders also bear some responsibility for safety lapses.

“We’re talking about a communication problem. You have to success in communicating how important safety guidelines are,” he told SvD.

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NATO

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he would back Sweden's Nato candidacy if the European Union resumes long-stalled membership talks with Ankara.

Erdogan links Swedish Nato approval to Turkish EU membership

“First, open the way to Turkey’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland,” Erdogan told a televised media appearance, before departing for the NATO summit in Lithuania.

Erdogan said “this is what I told” US President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community — a predecessor to the EU — in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.

The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said. “Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”

Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, is due to meet Erdogan at 5pm on Monday in a last ditch attempt to win approval for the country’s Nato bid ahead of Nato’s summit in Vilnius on July 11th and 12th. 

Turkey has previously explained its refusal to back Swedish membership as motivated by the country’s harbouring of people connected to the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group, and the Gülen movement, who Erdogan blames for an attempted coup in 2016. 

More recently, he has criticised Sweden’s willingness to allow pro-Kurdish groups to protest in Swedish cities and allow anti-Islamic protesters to burn copies of the Quran, the holy book of Islam.

In a sign of the likely reaction of counties which are members both of Nato and the EU, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the two issues should not be connected. 

“Sweden meets all the requirements for Nato membership,” Scholz told reporters in Berlin. “The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue.”

Malena Britz, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Swedish Defence University, told public broadcaster SVT that Erdogan’s new gambit will have caught Sweden’s negotiators, the EU, and even Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg off guard. 

“I think both the member states and Stoltenberg had expected this to be about Nato and not about what the EU is getting up to,” she said. “That’s not something Nato even has any control over. If Erdogan sticks to the idea that Turkey isn’t going to let Sweden into Nato until Turkey’s EU membership talks start again, then Sweden and Nato will need to think about another solution.” 

Aras Lindh, a Turkey expert at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs, agreed that the move had taken Nato by surprise. 

“This came suddenly. I find it hard to believe that anything like this will become reality, although there could possibly be some sort of joint statement from the EU countries. I don’t think that any of the EU countries which are also Nato members were prepared for this issue.”

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