Sweden, Finland, Turkey made progress in NATO talks: Swedish FM
Sweden and Finland have made significant progress in the negotiations with Türkiye regarding the Nordic countries NATO membershipsaid Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström on Wednesday.
“We had a very good conversation yesterday between Sweden, Finland and Turkey and I felt after this meeting that there is progress. We are moving forward,” Billström told reporters as he arrived for the second day of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu also made a statement on social media on Tuesday regarding the tripartite meeting, saying Türkiye conveyed its expectations within the framework of the memorandum of understanding signed during the NATO summit in Madrid in June.
“At the Turkey-Sweden-Finland trilateral meeting of foreign ministers, we evaluated the measures taken within the framework of the tripartite memorandum and emphasized our expectations,” he said, referring to the pact signed in June under which the Nordic countries work to address Turkey’s security concerns .
Sweden and Finland formally applied to join NATO in May, abandoning decades of military non-alignment, a decision spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
But Turkey, a powerful NATO member for over 70 years, expressed objections to its membership applications, citing the two Nordic countries’ tolerance and even support of terrorist groups.
Türkiye and the two NATO hopefuls signed a memorandum in June at the NATO summit in Madrid to address Ankara’s legitimate security concerns, paving the way for Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership.
Finland and Sweden give their full support to Türkiye to counter threats to the country’s national security, according to the memorandum. Therefore, Helsinki and Stockholm should not give support to the terrorist group PKK, its Syrian branch, the YPG, and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the group behind the defeated coup in Turkey in 2016.
In its more than 40-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU, which includes Sweden and Finland – has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is its Syrian offshoot.