Turkey postpones NATO meeting with Sweden, Finland: Stats-TV | News
The meeting, which was scheduled for February, has been canceled at Ankara’s request, state-owned TRT sources said.
Turkey has postponed a new round of talks with Sweden and Finland on the Nordic neighbors’ NATO membership bid in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, according to Turkish state TV.
The meeting scheduled to take place in Brussels was postponed at Ankara’s request, the state broadcaster said on Tuesday. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was also expected to attend the talks to be held next month.
Turkey’s decision came a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Sweden that he would not support its bid to join the Western US-led defense alliance after a far-right Swedish leader burned the Koran over the weekend.
Bids to join NATO must be ratified by all members of the alliance, of which Turkey is a member.
The Swedish-Turkish ties have recently been strained and Ankara has been outraged by the burning of the Koran outside its embassy in Stockholm.
The protest was approved by the Swedish authorities, despite Turkey’s strong objections.
Election in May
Erdogan’s comments and Tuesday’s postponement reduce Sweden and Finland’s prospects of joining the bloc ahead of Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
Finland hinted for the first time on Tuesday that it might consider joining NATO without Sweden because of Stockholm’s diplomatic problems with Ankara.
The Biden administration reiterated on Tuesday that it supports Finland and Sweden joining NATO as soon as possible.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told a press conference that he would not raise the issue of Finland’s possible accession but Sweden’s, after Turkey’s president said Sweden should not expect his country’s support.
Previous rounds of the NATO tripartite talks have been attended by State Department officials and focused on a specific list of Turkish demands, which include the deportation of dozens of mostly Kurdish suspects.
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not ratified the Nordic neighbors’ historic decision to break their tradition of military non-alignment in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promised that his parliament would approve the two bids next month.