Turkey can accept Finland in NATO without Sweden: Erdogan
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said for the first time on Sunday that Ankara can accept Finland into NATO without its Nordic neighbor Sweden.
Erdogan’s comments during a televised meeting with younger voters came days after Ankara suspended NATO accession talks with the two countries.
Its decision threatened to undermine Nato’s hopes of expanding the bloc to 32 countries at a summit scheduled for July in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Finland and Sweden shed decades of military non-alignment and applied to join the US-led defense alliance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Turkey and Hungary remain the only members of the 30-nation Western Defense Alliance that have not ratified Sweden’s and Finland’s membership bids.
The Hungarian parliament is expected to approve both bids in February.
But Erdogan has dug in his heels heading into a hotly contested presidential election on May 14 in which he seeks to energize his conservative and nationalist base of support.
Erdogan’s main complaint has been Sweden’s refusal to extradite dozens of suspects Ankara links to outlawed Kurdish militants and a failed coup attempt in 2016.
He signaled on Sunday that he was willing to accept Finland into the US-led defense bloc on its own.
“If necessary, we can give another answer regarding Finland. Sweden will be shocked when we give another answer for Finland,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.
He repeated his demand that Sweden hand over suspects wanted by Ankara.
“If you absolutely want to join NATO, you will return these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.
“You will send these terrorists to us so you can join NATO.”
The Koran is burning
Last week, the Finnish foreign minister suggested that Turkey would likely wait to ratify Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership until after the Turkish presidential election.
Pekka Haavisto told a press conference that he believed a pause in talks between the two Nordic countries and Turkey was needed following anger over a far-right activist burning a Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm earlier this month.
He added that a decision by Ankara on the matter was unlikely before the election.
Erdogan said on January 23 Sweden should not expect his country’s support for NATO membership after the incident.
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“Those who allow such blasphemy in front of our embassy can no longer expect our support for their NATO membership,” Erdogan said in a speech after a cabinet meeting.
“If you love members of terrorist organizations and enemies of Islam so much and protect them, then we advise you to seek their support for the security of your countries.”
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but all 30 member states must approve their bid.
Both countries also signed a trilateral memorandum pledging to ease Ankara’s concerns about groups it sees as terrorists based in the two countries.
The changes would allow the Swedish government to crack down on the recruitment, funding and activities of groups such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long battle against the Turkish state and is considered a terrorist organization by the US, the EU and Turkey.
Sweden has a larger Kurdish diaspora than Finland and a more serious dispute with Ankara.
Both countries have tried to break down Erdogan’s resistance through months of sensitive talks.
Sweden has approved a constitutional amendment that will enable the country to adopt tougher anti-terror laws that Ankara is demanding.
And both nations have lifted bans on military sales to Turkey that they imposed after its military incursion into Syria in 2019.