Sweden insists NATO membership talks with Turkey are going well – POLITICO
Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s recent comments about his country’s inability to meet Turkey’s demands for NATO membership are all a “misunderstanding”, he clarified on Wednesday.
Kristersson said last week that Turkey – which has not yet ratified Sweden’s bid to join NATO – “wants things that we cannot and do not want to give them.”
But speaking to reporters in Stockholm, the prime minister said Sweden had moved to strengthen anti-terrorism legislation – a key demand from Turkey, which wants individuals extradited from Sweden. The discussions are “going very well,” he said.
– We are doing exactly what we promised to do, not least in the area of combating terrorism, Kristersson told reporters in Stockholm. “I think that has been one of the core tasks — to strengthen the Swedish legislation against terrorism, to realize that activities on Swedish soil can be dangerous for other countries, can be directed against other countries, and also to recognize that Turkey has been one of the countries most affected by terrorism.”
But he also warned of limits to what Sweden can do when it comes to extraditing individuals to Turkey.
“Turkey sometimes names people that they would like extradited from Sweden and it is well known that Swedish legislation on that … is very clear: that courts [make] these decisions, there is no room to change it, he said. “I don’t think that should obscure the fact that things are going well.”
A Swedish court last month blocked the extradition of Bülent Keneş, an exiled Turkish journalist identified by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an individual Sweden had to extradite in exchange for Ankara’s green light from NATO.
In a marked change in tone from comments he made Jan. 8 at a Swedish security and defense conference, Kristersson said he also respected each NATO member’s domestic affairs when it came to expanding the alliance.
“We have full respect for the fact that Turkey, like all the other 30 NATO countries, makes its domestic decisions on whether to ratify or not.” But he added that Sweden has “very strong support from countries.”
Sweden and Finland are poised to become NATO’s newest members after the alliance backed their membership application at a summit in Madrid last June.