Sweden, Finland meet Turkey in NATO in a new attempt to make progress
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Washington (AFP) – NATO said on Wednesday that it would hold talks involving Turkey, Finland and Sweden in hopes of ending Ankara’s opposition to the Nordic countries joining the alliance ahead of a summit this month.
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he would convene senior officials from the three nations in Brussels in the coming days “to ensure that we make progress on Finland’s and Sweden’s applications to join NATO.”
“My intention is to have this in place before the NATO summit” in Madrid starting on June 28, Stoltenberg said during a visit to Washington.
“Finland and Sweden have made it clear that they are ready to sit down and address the concerns expressed by Turkey,” Stoltenberg told a joint news conference with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Sweden and Finland have historically tried to avoid teasing neighboring Russia, but abolished their reluctance to join NATO after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine – which had unsuccessfully tried to join the alliance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “wanted less NATO. He gets more NATO,” Stoltenberg said.
But all 30 NATO members must agree to accept a new member and Turkey has raised objections, citing the presence in the two Nordic nations of militants from the PKK, the Kurdish separatist group considered terrorists by Ankara.
Stoltenberg said that the two nations and NATO took the PKK issue “very seriously”.
“We know that no other NATO ally has suffered more terrorist attacks than Turkey,” Stoltenberg said.
Blinken reiterated that he remained “very confident” that NATO will “move forward” with membership of the two nations.
He seemed to tone down linking Turkey’s desire to buy F-16 fighter jets, as some pundits believe Ankara is holding out for concessions.
“These are separate issues. We have a long-standing and ongoing defense relationship with Turkey as a NATO ally,” Blinken said.
“We will continue to work through cases as they arise in terms of systems that Turkey is trying to acquire,” Blinken said.
The United States expelled Turkey in 2019 from the development of the state-of-the-art F-35 in retaliation for Ankara’s purchase of an advanced air defense system from Russia.
But Turkey’s image has risen in the United States through its drones sold to Ukraine, even as Ankara avoids sanctions against Russia.
© 2022 AFP