these are the top stories now. in peru, 12 protesters have been killed in the latest wave of demonstrations demanding the resignation of the president. they died in confrontations with security forces as they tried to overrun an airport. when he took office after the impeachment of pedro castille last month on charges of rebellion and conspiracy.

police in brazil have been clearing out protest camps in the capital of brasilia after attacks on government buildings by supporters of former president bolsonaro. around one thousand 500 people have been arrested since the riots around 1500 people have been arrested. reporter: they want those responsible, not only the ideological, intellectual authors, but the ones who carried out the attack on this countries institutions to be put in prison. but also they are asking for president -- former president bolsonaro to be put in prison and his three sons while they are at it. there is this call for there to be no amnesty as has happened in this country many times in the past. that these people pay for their attempt to destroy what they call this countries democracy. >> joe biden is meeting his mexican counterpart in his first visit to latin america as head

of state. the talks in mexico city are expected to focus on immigration and combating drug cartels. the u.s. president has declared a state of emergency in california where tens of millions of people have been told to expect more heavy downpours. 12 people have been killed in the past 10 days due to severe storms. forecasters are warning of more bad weather. the first attempted satellite launch from western europe has failed to reach orbit. the company behind the mission blamed an unspecified problem with the rocket. the launch occurred from a modified boeing 747 aircraft. the rocket had nine satellites on board. news continues on al jazeera after "inside story."

>> will turkey ratify sweden's nato membership? stockholm says it cannot fulfill all ankaras demands. what would make turkey change its mind and what does all this mean for nato's future? this is inside story. mohammed: welcome to the program . one of the followers of russia's invasion of ukraine has been the nordic countries seeking to join the nato military alliance. within months of russia

launching its so-called special military operation. all nato members need to ratify any accession requests and hungary and turkiye are the only two that have failed to do so. ankara accuses stockholm and helsinki of harboring members of the pkk who it considers a terrorist organization. turkiye is the second oldest member of nato and has the second largest army in the alliance. >> turkiye confirms we have done what we said we would, but it also says it wants things we cannot or do not want to give them. now the decision is with turkiye. >> finland and sweden have committed to long-term operation with turkiye on these issues. the time has come to finalize the accession process and ratify the accession protocol.

>> if sweden joins nato it would end the long-established military nonalignment policy. nato is the world's biggest military alliance. it was founded to counter the soviet union during the cold war. over the years it has expanded from 17 member countries in 1990 to the current 30. nato pools resources from its members including battleships, warplanes, heavy weapons, and more than 3 million personnel. the alliance aims to guarantee the freedom and security of member countries through political and military means. let's go ahead and bring in our guests. a professor of international relations at istanbul aydin university. in brussels, teresa fallon is the director of the center for russia europe asia studies. and we have pavel felgenhauer,

defense and military analyst. sweden is saying turkiye is asking too much and it cannot fulfill all their demands. where does that leave things? how ultimately does this get solved? >> thank you for having me. i want to clarify anything i say is my personal opinion and does not reflect any of the organizations i have been affiliated with. it is very key, even preparing for today's meeting, we see six months ago everyone was thinking things had been settled. as the planes landed in sweden and finland, they received messages that turkey -- the turkish government had changed their mind. after the nato summit they were not happy with the agreement. we have seen a new swedish government followed up with the same views as the previous government. the swedes have changed their laws in order to help facilitate some of the requests turkey has

made. but it seems turkiye is never going to be quite happy unless they extradite about 35 people. some of these are swedish citizens. about 1/10 of the population -- sweden took in a lot of kurdish refugees. some of these people have worked their way up in swedish society. one is a member of parliament. they will not extradite these people to turkiye. this is a strong sticking point. a lot of these issues really are not just about sweden and finland. it's also giving erdogan more leverage over nato. it also plays well to his domestic audience. he seems very powerful. most countries in nato are willing to let this play out. we saw with jens stoltenberg's comments that people are starting to lose patience with how long this is running. there are three possible scenarios. one, that it will happen

quickly, after hungary perhaps. the second is a more moderate, maybe erdogan will see what he can get. he wants to get f-16s from the united states. that might be difficult in this current congress. the third thing is nato. they don't feel they are getting enough support for their own security interests in regard to syria. the u.s. and turkey are on different sides on that issue. i think erdogan has a lot of demands and he does not -- he has been unhappy for quite some time. we have seen this happen with the previous secretary-general of nato. back in 2009. he wanted to buy a chinese air defense system, nato did not want that to happen. instead he bought from russia. that is where the u.s.-turkey situation erupted in regard to

the f-35's. turkey was no longer allowed. there are a lot of multiple strands in this relationship. sweden is almost one of the symptoms of it but i think turkey is showing they really hold all the cards right now. mohammed: will turkiye ratify sweden's membership? what is it going to take? >> it is difficult to say that turkiye will for sure authorize the admission of sweden to nato. we have seen in the past many examples showing member states try to score points with other countries within the alliance.

the united states want to make sure georgia and ukraine become members of nato in 2008. france and germany vetoed this process. greece vetoed the membership of passageway a. we know greece has been using membership in the european union to score political goals with turkiye. these things are normal with a multinational platform. secondly, turkiye is in political election station. -- election season. turkish nationalism has been on the rise. the party have made it quite clear on this, sweden complies with the terms of turkish government, turkey would never ratify the accession agreement. before the elections take place,

most likely after early may, i don't expect parliament to ratify the membership claims, but it is another reason that seems to have necessitated such a role on the part of turkiye. so long as we live in a environment like this, so long as there is a war of attrition between russia and ukraine and turkiye is maneuvering within nato -- i think this will continue for some time. mohammed: russia has said it is going to beef up its military presence in northwestern parts of the country in response to sweden and finland's bids to join nato. that is not a surprise. we have heard a lot of rhetoric from russia when it comes to attempts by sweden and finland to join nato.

how concerned is russia that this membership bid would be successful? how worried are they about the prospect of sweden and finland joining nato? >> that is seen as a serious problem. sweden and especially finland were seen for a long time that nato membership was almost impossible and of course during the cold war, finland was basically a russian protectorate. there was this term of finlandization, a capitalist country, but politically it was associated with the soviet union , with buying soviet weaponry, and foreign policy was coordinated from moscow. for them to become an enemy

nation, that is very serious. of course for the russian military it's not that bad. there will be new divisions formed in the baltic region. new army divisions means more positions for tank generals to occupy, more money to go to the defense budget. any kind of military likes an enemy. especially an enemy that is not attacking you. finland is not poised to attack russia. you can use the threat to get more money in your budget. right now i would say russia is pleased that turkiye and hungary are holding out, not allowing the formal accession of finland and sweden to the alliance. of course for all practical reasons they are already in.

the u.s. made clear they will treat any kind of threat to finland and sweden as if they are already nato members. the leverage turkey has is important. but it is not absolute. it is understood that eventually turkiye and hungary are going to cave. mohammed: what does this mean for nato's future especially as the war in ukraine continues? >> that could be a wildcard. we should recall that prior to making this public, both sweden and finland canvassed all nato members, whether they would support them to become members of nato so they would not just kind of put themselves out to dry like that. they canvassed everybody and from what i have been told, turkey did support their bid. it came as a bit of a shock once they made the announcement public that turkiye had other

requirements for them in order to become a member. that really is putting sweden and finland in a difficult situation. there is war in europe. sweden and finland are traditionally neutral countries and they have stuck their neck out by saying they want to become a member of nato when it was unclear they might be blocked by turkiye. there is resentment about that as well because saying you support them and not supporting them all the way through, using leverage to get what you want out of them, is seen in a negative light by some people. the important thing was at the nato summit back in spain, everyone was saying we have a rejuvenated nato with possible new member states. instead of being brain-dead as mccrone had announced a few years ago, nato had a reason. they all pulled together. there was a very positive narrative. in the background, turkey was

already formulating their position on how to maximize their leverage to get what they want out of other member states. we see even increased tensions now on the aegean between turkey and greece. it is nice on the facade but underneath there's a lot of bubbling problems. and turkiye plays an interesting role. we see them export drones to ukraine. they are getting financial support from russia. it is a complex relationship they have. >> if i can pick up on one of the points you were making. you said in the run-up to the announcement there was canvassing internally going on within nato member states as far as how all this would play out. then you have this three-way agreement with sweden and finland signed with turkey in 20 and that overcoming -- in 2022 aimed at overcoming ankara's

objections. how frustrated are they getting with all of this? >> that's a good question. it seems that the parameters are constantly changing. some people have complained that a lot of the disagreements are ambiguous. so it seems like the goal posts are constantly being changed. sweden is a democracy. they have certain protections for their citizens. they cannot just send people off to turkey even though they are swedish citizens. there is a clash in regard to values. i understand for erdogan it is good to have a maximalist position, ask for as much as you can get and see what you can find. even at the same time we are seeing turkey refusing to extradite uighur citizens to china. there are various feelings and

implications of this. and because sweden is a democracy, the problem is not so much with finland. the tensions are between turkey and sweden. there is a lot more to this than just sweden and the fact that sweden has removed their arms embargo that was put in place after turkey went into syria. sweden was not a member of nato. they put an arms embargo on them. they have lifted that now and said they will cooperate more in defense. that would be a positive. there has to be some negotiation. there has to be some give and take. everything is a negotiation and i think holding onto this maximalist position, if there was a clear message sent by jens

stoltenberg that patience is beginning to wear thin. this is also playing well to the domestic audience in turkey. they have 80% inflation in turkey. erdogan has to show turkey is a big power on the main stage. to pick up on your earlier question, if something happens in ukraine, or if the war expands, god forbid, there are a lot of people out there -- by letting this go on for so long it is like a win for putin. people are concerned about that part of the optics of the situation because it looks like nato is not together. that is a long horse trading situation. that is never good. everyone would -- originally thought let this play out between turkey, sweden, and finland. now there may be calls for others to get involved.

they are sending signals and we will see if it will have any effect. i do not think it will but it remains to be seen. mohammed: the stance that turkiye is taking, how much of a risk is this for erdogan when it comes to turkiye's relationship with other nato member states? is there any concern in turkiye that president erdogan is at risk of overplaying his hand? >> let me approach this another government in turkiye, i expect the turkish government will react in the same way. this is an issue that concerns turkish national security interests. turkey is quite upset with the international community concerning developments in syria , if we had another government, expect reaction would be the same. second of all.

there are disagreements within nato concerning the right approach. you should not assume all nato members are on the same page concerning the action the turkish government has been taking. there is a strong disagreement. some people are able to see there is a peace agreement with russia. some think pressure should be perished to the most extreme. from this perspective, why turkey has been so keen on national security considerations. because the government -- because turkish people seem to be quite happy with the position of the current turkish

government, they see this development because turkish people believe -- cooperation with the pkk in turkey and northern syria, and many people who had taken part in july 2016 took refuge, had taken refuge in sweden. looking at this issue from the security considerations of the turkish government, you can easily understand why the turkish government has been so keen on this issue. we should underline another point. if one country is very keen on its national security interests, others are simply ignoring those demands, you can jump to the conclusion there is a lack of trust. we should not forget the fact

that turkey has not been on good terms with the leading member of nato, the united states, for some time. these countries are at odds with each other concerning each and every issue. this is the kind of consideration -- continuation of the lack of cooperation. mohammed: did russia actually anticipate that sweden and finland would try and join nato as a result of the war in ukraine? where has all of this left russia's relationship with turkey? >> there has been talk in sweden of joining nato for a long time. the norwegians were pressing that ahead because the scandinavian countries tend to do everything together. they are divided with two big

nations inside nato, outside nato. the majority of people in sweden and finland was against a membership. until last year and the beginning of this war when there was a watershed change in public and political opinion. i discussed this in helsinki in the 1990's. it is kind of an extreme possibility. it was not foreseen in moscow. maybe there were specialists who understood this could happen, but the decision-making bodies in the kremlin apparently did not. that was a nasty surprise because actually building defenses when you have finland, especially finland, as a nato member would be not good.

the last several years already beginning from i think at least 2007, 2008, finland and sweden are very close cooperating with nato. they have joint military exercises, deploy forces together. at nato headquarters, you were all the time bumping into swedish and finnish military. you could recognize them by their uniforms. this is not out of the blue. russia hopes that maybe this will be -- the turkish veto will hold. but turkey is so dependent on europe, especially the united states, they can do turkey so much harm by just simply not providing aid and technologies, it is understood this turkish veto is going to evaporate

rather soon. mohammed: i'm sorry to bother you -- to interrupt you -- we are running out of time. one more question. if turkiye ultimately approves sweden's bid, does that mean they will also approve finland's bid? >> of course. as far as membership is concerned, the problems with turkey and finland are easier to solve. we also know finland has made it quite -- if the problems with sweden are not resolved, they will not join the alliance. they will join the alliance together. let me tell you something which very much concerns why turkey has been acting this way. turkish authorities are in the middle of a geopolitical

confrontation and the rest of the countries do not have the luxury of ignoring turkey's claims because there is a second cold war. for turkish authorities, it is a geopolitical language. mohammed: thanks to all of our guests. thank you for watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website, al jazeera.com. for further discussion, go to our facebook page. you can also join the conversation on twitter. for the whole team, goodbye for now.

■■■■■q■q■ ■q■r■r■ç■ç