Ankara is asking too much in return for an approval of the NATO application, says Sweden
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Sunday that while he is confident that Turkey will ultimately give in and approve the country’s application to join NATO, the conditions set by Ankara cannot all be met.
“Türkiye both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them,” Prime Minister Kristersson said at a defense conference in Sweden.
Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Türkiye in 2022 to overcome Ankara’s objections to their membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The two Nordic countries applied to join NATO in May in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but membership requires unanimous approval by all current members. Turkey has opposed Sweden and Finland joining, accusing them of harboring militants hostile to Ankara, including those from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization not only by Turkey but also by the European Union , United. states, UK, Australia and Canada, among others.
A problem has been the extradition of people whom Türkiye regards as terrorists. Ankara expressed disappointment with Sweden’s Supreme Court late in 2022, which stopped a request to extradite a journalist with alleged links to Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, whom Türkiye accuses of an attempted coup.
source:
Reuters