Turkey to freeze Finland, Sweden’s NATO bids if they do not keep promises: Prez
Turkey will suspend Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO accession process if they do not keep their promises to fight terrorism, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“I would like to remind you that we will freeze the process if they do not take the necessary measures to meet our conditions,” Erdogan added at a news conference on Monday after a government meeting in the capital Ankara, adding that Sweden “did not show a good picture” ” for now.
“Our position is very clear. The rest is up to them,” he says.
NATO’s 30 member states signed accession protocols for Sweden and Finland in early July, which began the process of admitting the two Nordic countries to the military alliance, the Xinhua news agency reported.
The next step is for the parliaments of all NATO members to ratify their accession to NATO.
Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO offerings were initially blocked by Turkey, which accused them of “supporting” anti-Turkish terrorist groups when they rejected Ankara’s extradition requests for suspects affiliated with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Gulen movement.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has been rebelling against the Turkish government for more than three decades.
The Gulen movement is led by and named after the US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who is considered by his followers to be a spiritual leader. The Turkish government accuses the movement of being behind the failed coup in 2016 in which at least 250 people were killed.
On 28 June, Turkey, Sweden and Finland agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) before Ankara lifted its veto ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid.
In the Memorandum of Understanding, Finland and Sweden promised to support Turkey’s fight against terrorism and agreed to address Turkey’s “pending expulsion or extradition requests of terror suspects urgently and thoroughly”.
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