it a barbara, the upscale community of monta, seato was evacuated, the celebrity studded towns, $10000.00 residents, include the duke and duchess of sussex. and oprah winfrey the flash flood situation is now the potential is therefore county wide flash flooding. and so please stay vigilant. in santa cruz county, 32000 people were evacuated when the swollen sand, lorenzo river spilled over its banks. at least a dozen people have died in the storms. maria could shiara barely escaped a similar fate. a huge branch, harpooned my roof, and i live in a small studio. so i have 2 kitties and we could have been killed. residents are frustrated by wide spread road closures can't make it to work. it's like a, like a rat trying to get out of amaze, trying to find that different little route to get 5 massive weather systems called

atmospheric rivers have rolled in off the pacific. in recent days. more rain is forecast for the rest of the week. the only benefit for californians is heavy snow fall in the mountains, which will help relieve the states, severe drought. rob reynolds al jazeera, santa cruz, california, the national voodoo tie festival is being held and benign. ah, the country is widely seen as the birthplace, all through to and to celebration, stop the ritual sacrifice of a guards. the festival also involves music, dancing and drinking alcohol. precision to the atlantic ocean pies, respect to enslaved ancestors who were taken away from the name. ah, this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. the sour fighting in ukraine's

don barza region is intensifying with rushes, forces strengthened by fighters. from the wagner group, the british defense ministries, as it appears, russia is taking control of much of the salt mining town of solider. ukraine's military has been fending off attack, stay the town for 4 days. it's name back much weird trips on both sides have suffered heavy losses. but from keith, here's chow stratford. this town has been contested for months now. largely am, it's been hit by a heavy artillery from the russians, but we knew we do know now that according to military analysts and these intelligence reports that the fighting seems to be very heavy and in the streets. indeed, there been witnesses quoted on some of the agencies who managed to escape the town describing having to move back street by street as tanks moved in interestingly as well. there are reports that heavy contingents of the wagner group

this sir private mercenary group, whose leader, if gaily, pre gazelle, is very close to vladimir putin, a saudi arabia, as we're moving all covered 19 restrictions for the harsh pilgrimage this year. it's welcoming back pre pandemic numbers of visitors to the holy size. it usually draws more than $2000000.00 people each year to the city of mecca. those are the headlines. the news continues after inside story, which is up next. ah . will turkey a ratify? sweden's nato membership? stockholm says it can't fulfill all encores demands. as the blocked membership

requires unanimous approval. what would make turkey a change of mind? and what does all of this mean for nato's future? this is inside story. ah hello and welcome to the program. i'm how much am john? one of the many fall out of russia's invasion of ukraine has been that previously neutral nordic countries are seeking to join the natal military alliance, sweden and finland applied in may last year. within months of russia, launching its so called special military operation, all nato members need to ratify any accession requests. and hungary and turkey are the only 2 that have failed to do so on cra accuses stockholm in helsinki of harbouring members of curtis group. the p. k. k, which it considers a terrorist organization. turkey is one of the oldest members of nato and has the 2nd largest army in the alliance. both sweden and nato say that all parties have

had their say, and it's time to close the deal. to key it more to be careful that kia confirmed that we've done what we said we would do, man, but it also says it wants things that we cannot or do not want to give them. now the decision is with ted kia, send them on susan, i have delivered to own that agreement and also committed, created to have a long term corporation with turkey on this issues. so therefore, the time has come to, to finalize the accession process on to rectify the accession foldable. if sweden joins nato, it would in the long established military non alignment policy. the north atlantic treaty organization is the world's biggest military alliance. it was founded in 1949 to counter the soviet union during the cold war. over the years it has expanded growing from 17 member countries in 1992, the current 30. nato pulls resources from its members, including battleships, war,

plains, arrange of heavy weapons. and more than 3000000 personnel, the alliance aims to guarantee the freedom and security of member countries through political and military means. ah. all right, let's go ahead and bring in our guests from stumble tarik ogles lou, a professor of international relations at is stumble iden university in brussels. theresa fallon is the founder and director of the center for russia, europe, asia, studies. and in moscow we have pub, falcon, how're a defense and military analysts, a warm welcome to you all and thanks so much for joining us today on inside story. so he said let me start with you to day. so sweet in the saying that tortilla is asking too much and that it can't fulfill all of their demands. where does that leave things and, and how ultimately does this gets solved? hello, thank you for having me. i just want to clarify that anything i say is my personal opinion and doesn't reflect any of the organizations i've been affiliated with. i

think that it's very key. we've seen even preparing for today's meeting 6 months ago and was thinking that things had been settled. and as the plane landed in sweden and finland, they received messages that turkey, the turkish government had changed their mind and that they weren't after the nato summit. they weren't happy with the agreement. so i think we've seen a new swedish government. they followed up with the same views as the previous government. the swedes of actually changed their laws in order to help facilitate some of the request that turkey has made. but it seems that turkey is never going to be quite happy unless they are about 35 people. and some of these are actually now swedish citizens because about 110th of the population, sweden took in a lot of kurdish refugees. so some of these people have worked their way up in swedish society. one is now a member of parliament,

and they will not expedite these people to turkey. so this is a really strong sticking point. and a lot of these issues really are really just about sweden and finland. it's also giving everyone more leverage over nato. and it also plays well to his domestic audience. and he seems very powerful and it seemed most countries and they were willing to kind of let this play out. but we saw yesterday with gens, don't bergs, comments that, you know, people are starting to lose patients with how long this is running. so there are 3 possible scenarios, one that it will happen quickly after hungary, perhaps. the 2nd one is kind of a more moderate. maybe i can get, you know what, he can this tough transaction. this tough negotiation isn't positions he, when he can get, he wants to get f, teens from the united states, i'm sorry, f sixteens from the united states. and that might be difficult in this current

congress. so, and the 3rd thing is in nato, they're there, they don't feel that they're getting enough support for their own security interests in regard to syria. so the u. s. and turkey on different sides on those issues. so i think that or no one has a lot of demands and he is not just unhappy. now he's been unhappy for quite some time. we've seen this happen with the previous sex, general secretary general of nato. he kind of block that back in 2009. he wanted to buy a chinese or defense system. they don't, didn't want that to happen. so instead, he bought this as 400 from russia. and that's kind of where the u. s. turkey situation kind of erupted in regard to the f. $35.00 turkey was a longer loan into that buying on that $35.00. so they're asking for the 16th. so there are a lot of multiple strands in this relationship. and sweden is almost one of the symptoms of it, but i think turkey showing that they really hold all the cards right now, tara,

from your vantage point, will turkey ultimately ratify sweden's nato membership. and what's it going to take to get to that point? actually it has expanded, difficult to say that turkey holds for sure, and it's called nice dad me can look in the see with the natal because we all know that looking put them in historical perspective. natal members have brought the national issues to the platform of the alliance whenever any particle, the puppy came to the agent that because she's in the past many examples showing that number state site, the score leverage is right score points with other countries through the ration position within their life, for example, if we know that the united states wanted to make sure that georgia and ukraine become members of nato in 2008 by france and germany veto his process in the past, we had seen that greece, for example, very much veto the membership work republican, but i know you, we also know that greece repeat that. dissertations have been using be membership

inside the european union to score some joe political goals of the turkey. so these kind of things are quite more bold with the market a through multi nation platforms. we have to on the line to be to clearly secondly, coming to your question. not turkeys in the middle of the political election season and turkish nation. that is, and has been on the rise for some time and our dog and his partner nation. that is the action part they have made. it's been quite clear that on this is to we didn't appeal them comply with the term. so turkish governments took you will never rectify the terms of the efficient agreement before before the elections take place, most likely in late actual or early may. i don't expect that turkish parliament could be. busy that apply the membership claims of these 2 countries within a talk. but it is also another reason that seems to have quite facilitated such kind of federal on the part of to keep because the international system has now

been shifted to where multiple that might him. so long as believe in a multiple day might a month. number one, number 2, so long as we want you paid kind of at, in russia and ukraine and tow keys leverages within nato turkeys. many wouldn't it projections within they thought seem to have been quite tolerated by their life. so i think this situation will continue for some time. pavel, russia has said that it's going to beef up its military presence in the northwestern parts of the country and response to sweden and finland bids to join nato. clearly, that is not a surprise to hear that rhetoric. we've heard a lot of rhetoric from russia when it comes to the attempt by sweden and finland to join nato. but how concerned is russia at this point that this membership bid would be successful? how worried are they about the prospect of sweden and finland joining nato? a world or start seen as a serious problem on sweden and especially when we were seen for

a long time there, nato membership was basically almost impossible. and of course, during the cold war, fin one, the was basically a russian wo protectorate, there was this term of fin dies, a sion brand for kappa. there was country, but politically it was associated with the soviet union was buying. so yeah, weaponry and was kind of putting it for foreign policy was in kind of well coordinated from mosque and so for them to become an enemy nation. that's very serious. of course, for the russian military. maybe it's not that bad. there will be new divisions formed in the baltic region. new army divisions means more positions for tag generals to occupy more money to go into the defense budget. any kind of

military, like synonymy, especially any mean it's not a, it's not really boys to attack russia, but you can figure that this is a threat then that means you can use that to get more money in your budget. but russia right now might be, is a bit, i would say, please, that turkey and hungary are holding out then not allowing the for mo accession, a friend and sweden to into the alliance. though, of course, for all practical reasons they are already in a united states, made clear that they will treat any kind of a threat to when than sweden as, as if they are already nato members. so the leverage 30 houses are gordon, but it's not absolutely. let's understood moscow that eventually turkey and hungary

are going to cave in to recent. what is all this mean for nato's future, especially as the war and ukraine continues. that could be a wild card. i just want to pick up on one of points there. we should recall that prior to making this public, both sweden and finland candidates to all nato members, whether they would support them to become members of nato. so they wouldn't just kind of put themselves out to dry like that. so they can bas everybody and fun from what i've been told. turkey did support their bid, and so they, it came as a bit of a shock once they made the announcement public than turkey had other requirements for them in order to become a member. so that really is put sweden and finland in a very difficult situation. there's a war going on in europe, sweden and finland are traditionally neutral countries. and they really kind of suck their neck out by saying they want to become a member of nato. when it was unclear that they might be blocked by turkey. so i think that there is some kind of resentment about that as well. because saying that

you support them and not supporting them all the way through using leverage to get what you want out of them is, is kind of being seen in a negative light by some people. so the important thing was at the nato summit, back in spain, we, everyone was saying, you know, we have a rejuvenated nato with possible to member states. instead of being brain dead, as my car had announced a few years ago, nato was, you know, got it's mojo back. had a reason, you know, kind of, they all pulled together. and there was a very, you know, positive narrative, but in the background, as these planes were leaving turkey was already kind of formulating their position on how to maximize their leverage, to get what they want out of other nato member states. and in addition, we even increased tension. so in the, in between turkey and greece. so there's a lot of, you know, that's nice on the side, but underneath is a lot of bubbling problems. and turkey actually plays quite an interesting role. we

see them export drones to ukraine, and they're also getting financial support from russia. it's. it's very complex relationship that they have. this is theresa if i could just pick up on one of the points you are making. you, you said that in the run up to the announcement that there was canvassing internally that was going on within nato member states. as far as of how all this would play out, ah, then you have this this 3 way agreement that sweden and finland signed with turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming anchor as objections to their membership of nato. would nato members have anticipated that this would not have been resolved yet and, and just how frustrated are they getting with all of this? that's really good question. and it seems that the parameters are constantly changing this week. some people have complained that a lot of the disagreements are bit ambiguous. so it seems like the goal posts are

constantly being changed. and, you know, in sweden is a democracy. they have certain protections for their citizens. they can't just send people off to turkey, even though they're sweetie, citizen. so there's, there's kind of a, a class here in regard to some values. and i understand, you know, for, to why it's going to have a maximum list position. ask for as much as you can get and see what you can, you can find. and i mean, even at the same time we're seeing turkey refusing to extradite weaker citizens to china. so, you know, there's, there are various feelings and implications of this. and because sweden is a democracy, the problem really isn't so much with finland. the tensions are between turkey and sweden because of the large kurdish population there. so there's a lot more to this than just sweden. and we see, you know, the,

the fact that sweden has removed their arms embargo that was put in place after turkey went into syria. so the sweden was on, you know, they put in arms embargo and them. and they have lifted that out and they have so then they will cooperate in defense cooperation. so i think that that would be a positive. so there, there has to be some negotiation here. there have to, there has to be some give and take. as we all know, you know, everything is a negotiation and i think holding on to this, maxim was position. i think there was a clear message yesterday sent by and still timbered, that patients is beginning to wear thing by turkey. this is also playing very well to the domestic audience, and he, they have 80 percent in place in turkey. he has to kind of show that i have a big power on the world stage and it remains to be seen if something also to pick up on your earlier question. you know,

if something happens in ukraine or if this war expands, god forbid. i mean, there are a lot of black ones out there and you know, by letting this go on for so long, it's kind of like a win for. and then i think people are concerned about that part of the optics of this whole situation because it looks like nato is not together, that it's kind of a long horse trading situation and, and that's never good. so i think that everyone, we originally thought, let's just play out. it's between turkey and sweden and finland. and now there might be some calls for other countries to get more involved. but i think 1st they're sending signals, and we'll see if that will have any effect. i don't think it will, but it remains to be seen, tara, this stance that turkey is taking. how big a risk is this for president or to one when it comes to turkey is relationship with other nato member states. and is there any concern in turkey that the president or the one is perhaps at risk of overplaying his hand?

actually let me approve this question. the former hypothetical perspective. if we had another government here in turkey, i expect the turkish government who have reacted the same manner in the same way a because this is an issue that's been much concern. stock issue national security in tennessee 30 is quite upset with the position of its partner with the rest of the international community concerning the developments in the agency concerning. they will open cynthia, concerning her case of secular disability. if we had another government, i expect more packet or reaction will be the same. second, before there are strong sake leave us within nato, concerning the right approach to be booked up against russia as friend. so be sure that assume that all natal members are all the same page concerning each and every action russian government has been taken concerning each and every action there today to watch the racial nato security, paris, for example, there is

a strong disagreement between the countries in central europe on the what have and german and financial due at the time. some people are quite eager to see that that is so that kind of piece agree with me. it's going to show us some others think that the bushel continue to be. and because that i shall be punished to 6 feet. so if you approached this particular problem from this particular perspective, we could easily understand why talkie has been so keep on nation with secret at the concentrations. and i think that the cost the turkish problem of not the sole high turkish politics, because turkish people tre significant extent seem to be quite happy with the position adopted by the cold turkish government. they see this particular development as a coordination learn terrace because magical turkish people out of the view that the people who took refuge and she read them back in the past. busy and voting close cooperation with the p k. k into the key and you know, to see the many people who had taken their part in this attempt in july 2006,

steve had it took refuge, had taken refuge in sir rhythm. so looking to see issue from the security considerations of the turkish government and the people that like easily understand why kush government has been so keen on this issue. and we should also on the money and not the point. if one country is very keen on its national security internet, as well as the other members are simply ignoring those demands. so we can jump to the conclusion that there is a strong degree of disagreement that it has to be your lack of trust and will be life. and the not forget the fact that he has not been on good terms with the leading member of theater. the united states for some time, these 2 countries are at all with each other concerning each and every issue in particular, the eastern mediterranean agent, the great and the listing agent. so this is a kind of continuation of this turkish, i'm going to come back a corporation problem. did russia actually anticipate that sweden and finland would

actually try and join nato as a result of the war and ukraine, and also where, whereas all this left russia's relationship with turkey, a one that has been talking for one man, the sweden of joining me for a long time, b, b, b, a dot, members of nato. they were pressing that the head because the scandinavian countries tend to do everything together in the block. and that they are divided with 2 big nations inside main to many sions, outside nato. but the majority of people in sweden and finland was against made the membership up to last year. and the beginning of this war, when there was a watershed change in public and political opinion. i mean,

i discussed this in the house and then and then sweden, in the ninety's and they're saying all that kind of an extreme possibility. now we're not now they are. and that was actually not fully foreseen in moscow. maybe there were some specialists who understood that this could happen a but then the kind of decision making bodies in the band with and that so was a nasty surprise. ready because that you were building the hands says, when you have finland, especially when one of your member would be now the good do of course in the last several years, some years already beginning from i think at least 20072008 . when run than sweden very closely there miller, to work operating late to imparting jointer military exercises, the pouring forces together, and then they go headquarters,

you are all the time bumping into swedish and finish military, recognize them by their uniform. so this is not just simply came out of the blue russia folks of maybe this will be, as i said, the, the turkish, the 3rd is kind of detail will hold for some time. but turkey is so dependent on europe, especially in the united states. and they can do turkey so much harm actually by just simply not providing aid and technologies. it's understood that this 3rd dish rico is going to evaporate rather soon, novel. i'm, i'm sorry to bother you. problem turn interrupt. you. i just do. we are running out of time is when asked. hark one last question here talk we only have about a minute and a half left. if turkey alternately approve sweden's bid, does that mean that they will also approve finland's bid? of course actually in it as far as the membership is concerned,

that is not an issue. objection to that because the problems with inter canceling that much easier console in comparison to the dispute. it's been written and then not that you also know that if in them has made it quite clear that if the problem with see with them that's not a good or not resolved, they will not join the live alone. so they will join their last again for this concert to the parties. but they also tell you something very much conscience. the main reason why i told you has been acting this way because to push it out of the do that we are in the middle. ok, kind of geopolitical confrontation with the leading powers of the globe and the rest of the country is to not have the luxury of an ignoring turnkey claim. some consideration because he's kind of sick or world war exec called for a why to the, to be can to problem on to, to the last to the other side. so turkish authority speak and through this than

political geopolitical language. all right, well we have run out of time. we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much to all of our guests. torak or was lou theresa fallon and pablo fell, going out and thank you to for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com, and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash a j inside story. you can also do the conversation on twitter. our handle is at ha, inside store it for me and how much i'm german, the whole team here. bye for now. the ah.

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