NATO ministers “secure” Turkey will not stop Sweden and Finland from joining
Foreign ministers from several NATO countries are hopeful that Turkey will change its mind about opposing Sweden and Finland’s accession to the Western Defense Alliance and that the two countries will quickly join.
“We hope that this situation will be resolved through a direct dialogue between the three countries,” said Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, speaking ahead of talks with his NATO counterparts in Berlin on Sunday.
He said there had been “contacts” between Turkey, Sweden and Finland on Saturday night “to discuss what opportunities there are to move forward”. “I fully understand Turkey’s concerns…[but]we should not lose momentum. . . especially in the current context, he said.
Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, said he was “confident” that Turkey would give in. “But of course Turkey is sometimes difficult, and we are also sometimes difficult,” he said.
NATO foreign ministers will spend Sunday discussing the war in Ukraine and how they can intensify aid to the Kyiv authorities. They will also discuss NATO’s new strategic concept ahead of the Alliance’s summit in Madrid in June. This will define the security challenges facing NATO and outline the political and military tasks that will be undertaken to address them.
Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said there should be no delay in bringing Sweden and Finland into NATO. “There should be no… Gray zone,” she said before the informal meeting, adding that it was her hope that the two countries could “join very quickly”.
Melanie Joly, the Canadian foreign minister, said: “The opportunity for the alliance to face this moment is greater than other bilateral issues.”
On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for Sweden and Finland to join NATO, saying he could not take a “positive view” of the two nations’ potential membership offers.
As a reason for his objection, he cited their support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been conducting a decades-long armed uprising against the Turkish state. It is classified as a terrorist organization by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. Erdoğan said the Scandinavian countries were “like some kind of boarding house for terrorist organizations”.
But Turkey seems to be alone in this stance, with most NATO member states expressing strong support for Finland’s and Sweden’s accession.
The Swedish and Finnish foreign ministers joined their NATO colleagues at a dinner in Berlin on Saturday night to discuss their membership application.
“If they decide to seek membership, I am convinced that Allies will look constructively and positively at their membership in this alliance,” said Mircea Geoană, NATO’s Deputy Secretary General.
He described the two countries as “pulsating democracies” with “impeccable” information on the rule of law and “strong military” that were “very interoperable with the rest of NATO”.
Baerbock said many countries had never wanted to join the defense pact “but now they are being pushed into NATO” by Russia’s offensive war in Ukraine.
The German government would ensure “rapid ratification” of Swedish and Finnish membership of NATO, she added. “This can not be a lengthy process,” she said, insisting that the two countries’ accession would “make us even stronger”.