Finland, Sweden’s leader discusses NATO’s bid with Erdogan
Brussels, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News – June 27, 2022): Finnish and Swedish leaders will discuss their halted NATO missions with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday at the start of an alliance summit in Madrid, officials said.
But Turkey said the four-way meeting, which will also involve NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, did not mean that Ankara was close to lifting its objection to the two Nordic countries joining the military bloc.
The four leaders will meet in Madrid, in a final attempt to break a deadlock before the alliance’s summit begins, which will focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Officials from Ankara, Helsinki and Stockholm held a new round of talks on Monday at NATO headquarters in Brussels to try to unravel the differences.
“My strong hope is that this dialogue can be successfully concluded in the near future, preferably before the summit,” said Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson after meeting Stoltenberg in Brussels.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year forced the two Nordic countries to abandon decades of military freedom of alliance by applying for NATO membership in May.
However, the joint offer of membership, which was initially considered a rapid process, has been delayed by objections from NATO member Turkey.
– “Safe haven” – Ankara has accused Finland and Sweden in particular of providing a refuge for banned Kurdish militants whose decades-long uprising against the Turkish state has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The Turkish leader has also called on Sweden and Finland to lift the arms embargo imposed on Turkey in 2019 due to Ankara’s military offensive in Syria.
Erdogan signaled on Saturday that no progress had been made in Sweden’s attempts to join NATO, and called on Stockholm to take “concrete measures” to meet Ankara’s concerns.
Andersson insisted on NATO on Monday that “Sweden is not and will not be a haven for terrorists” and said that Stockholm had tried to address the Turks’ concerns about extradition requests submitted by Ankara.
– Affected authorities work intensively to deport people who may pose a security threat, Andersson says.
“And there are a large number of cases that are currently being processed.” Turkish officials said Ankara did not see the summit as a deadline for resolving its objections.
Erdogan’s top foreign policy adviser said Tuesday’s four-way meeting did not mean an agreement was imminent.
“Serious changes” – “Participating in this summit does not mean that we will return from our position,” Ibrahim Kalin told the HaberTurk channel.
“We are negotiating. It has many steps.” Kalin said that Finland and Sweden needed to make “serious changes” to their laws “and constitution” – aimed at banned Kurdish militants.
“We want you to show the same change towards the PKK and its affiliated YPG, PYD and similar structures,” he said, referring to Kurdish groups operating in Syria and Iraq.
Stoltenberg insisted that Sweden had “taken concrete measures in recent days to directly address Turkey’s concerns”.
“You have already changed Swedish law. You have initiated new police investigations against the PKK and you are currently looking at Turkish extradition requests,” he told Andersson.
“These concrete steps represent a paradigm shift in Sweden’s view of terrorism.”