Sweden will seek constructive progress with Turkey on NATO’s offer
STOCKHOLM, June 10 (Reuters) – Sweden will ensure constructive progress in talks with Turkey on Ankara’s objections to the Nordic country’s application to join NATO’s defensive alliance, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday.
Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO last month in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but face opposition from Turkey, which accuses them of supporting and harboring Kurdish militants and other groups they consider terrorists.
The objections surprised Finnish, Swedish and many NATO officials and have dampened the prospects for rapid progress in membership applications ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid later this month. Read more
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“Our application has received broad support among NATO members,” she said in a foreign policy declaration in the Swedish Parliament. “Our ambition is to make progress in a constructive spirit on the issues raised by Turkey.”
Linde added that there should be no doubt that Sweden stood with allies against terrorism.
The Swedish government survived a no-confidence vote on Tuesday with the help of a lawmaker whose demands for support for Kurds in northern Syria could hamper its attempts to join NATO, whose members must approve any new participants. Read more
Ankara has also cracked down on Swedish authorities for stopping arms exports to Turkey in 2019 when the country launched a military operation in northern Syria.
Without referring directly to Turkey, Linde said that a Swedish membership in NATO could “change the conditions for arms exports within our national regulations”.
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Reporting by Anna Ringström and Niklas Pollard, editing by Terje Solsvik and Simon Johnson
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