Prediction record
25% outcomegeopoliticsSweden will stop protecting the Kurds (throw them "under the bus"), and Turkey will then approve Swedish and Finnish NATO membership.
A scored record for Peter Zeihan, made on .
Scored record
25% outcomegeopolitics“So my projection here is that the Swedes will abandon the Kurds and that the Turks will approve Swedish and Finnish membership in NATO.”
Sweden will stop protecting the Kurds (throw them "under the bus"), and Turkey will then approve Swedish and Finnish NATO membership.
- Made on
- 2022-05-22
- Outcome
- 25% outcome
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Contribution
- +1.12
Criterion
- Resolution status
- resolved
- Resolved on
- 2023-05-22
Within ~12 months, Sweden makes concessions on the Kurds (curtails protections/support) and Turkey consequently approves (ratifies/clears) Swedish and Finnish NATO accession.
Criterion: within ~12 months (by 2023-05-22), Sweden curtails protections/support for the Kurds AND Turkey consequently approves (ratifies/clears) Swedish AND Finnish NATO accession. Resolved AGAINST on the conjunction: by the deadline Turkey had approved only Finland (ratified Mar 30, 2023), explicitly withholding approval of Sweden. Sweden's Turkish ratification came ~Jan 2024 / membership Mar 7, 2024 — outside the window. The 'Sweden makes concessions on the Kurds' half is partially supported (memorandum commitments, extradition steps, a counter-terror law effective June 1, 2023, lifted arms-export curbs), but the full predicted outcome — Turkey approving BOTH within ~12 months — did not occur. Note for later stages: this record bundles a Kurds-concession claim with a Turkey-approves-both claim; the bundle fails on timing for Sweden even though Finland was approved and concessions were partially made. Outcome value (o) deliberately not assigned (later stage).
Sources
Sweden, Finland, NATO, and Turkey
YouTube ·
Outcome evidence
Within the ~12-month window, Turkey approved FINLAND but NOT Sweden. Turkey's parliament ratified Finland's accession on Mar 30, 2023 and Finland became NATO's 31st member on Apr 4, 2023. Crucially, Turkey explicitly did NOT approve Sweden in the same vote, citing continued concerns over Sweden's stance toward Kurdish groups.
Turkey's (and then Hungary's) ratification of SWEDEN's accession did not occur until LATE JANUARY 2024 (Turkey) / FEBRUARY 2024 (Hungary); Sweden became NATO's 32nd member on Mar 7, 2024 — about 9+ months AFTER this record's 2023-05-22 deadline. So the 'Turkey approves Swedish AND Finnish membership' conjunction was NOT satisfied within ~12 months.
On the Kurds component: Sweden made concessions over the period (June 2022 trilateral memorandum commitments; intensified extradition handling; a new counter-terrorism law that took effect June 1, 2023; lifting arms-export restrictions to Turkey), which is directionally consistent with the 'concessions on the Kurds' part of the claim — but these still did not produce Turkish approval of SWEDEN within the 12-month window.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Score contribution
+1.12- Confidence
- 85%
- Outcome
- 25% outcome
- Importance
- 4 / 5
- Contribution
- +1.12
This page displays the scored record as published; the website doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Provenance
Sweden will stop protecting the Kurds (throw them "under th…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- July 4, 2026
- Made on
- 2022-05-22
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources