Turkey says it is “currently impossible” to admit Sweden into NATO
As it stands right now, Turkey cannot accept Sweden’s NATO membership, according to the country’s foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
“Just like Hungary, Türkiye supports NATO expansion and has always had the same attitude about membership of candidate states,” Çavuşoğlu told a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday after a one-on-one meeting with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto.
“However,” he continued, “while Türkiye understands the security concerns of Sweden and Finland, it is unacceptable that Türkiye’s security concerns are not met.”
Çavuşoğlu’s comments followed two tumultuous weeks in Türkiye’s relations with Sweden and Finland as the countries seek Nato membership facing mounting obstacles.
Stockholm has been courting Ankara to get the green light for its application since last year when it, along with Finland, threw away its military non-alignment in the wake of the war between Russia and Ukraine. However, NATO members Turkey and Hungary have withheld their affirmations, and Ankara has made strict demands that its security concerns about the terrorists that Sweden harbors and tolerates be addressed.
According to a tripartite memorandum written by the parties last June, Stockholm has promised to meet said demands, including extradition and increased crackdowns on terrorist groups. However, in the previous month, public support in Sweden for the terrorist groups by their sympathizers has increased tensions between the two countries, which Ankara has repeatedly warned would jeopardize Stockholm’s NATO membership process.
Last week, Ankara suspended NATO talks with the two Nordic nations after an incident in Stockholm in which a far-right politician burned a copy of the Koran in front of its embassy, sparking global reactions.
Türkiye was already outraged by a Swedish prosecutor’s decision not to bring charges against PKK terrorist sympathizers who hanged President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s picture by the ankles outside the Stockholm district court.
Erdoğan said Sweden “shouldn’t expect any support from Türkiye”, given the leeway Swedish authorities gave for such public displays, even indicating that his country could approve Finland’s application, leaving Sweden “shocked”.
Helsinki sought to stay in Ankara’s good graces and reportedly made “immediate contact” with Erdoğan following his hint, with foreign ministers already gathered for “preliminary discussions”.
While they have considered joining NATO with Sweden, Ankara has signaled that they may not be so lucky.
The terrorist organization has a large presence in Sweden, Çavuşoğlu claimed on Tuesday, referring to the PKK and its Syrian affiliate YPG which also finds support from the public in wider Europe.
In a confession-like statement, Sweden’s chief negotiator for NATO was quoted on Sunday as saying, “Unlike Finland, we have a larger share of the funding for the PKK from Sweden.”
“Financing of terrorism, recruitment of people and propaganda continues (in the country),” Çavuşoğlu said.
“According to the trilateral memorandum, these countries pledged to curb terrorist activities,” he recalled. – We can see that we have no major problems with Finland compared to Sweden. Political will is needed. We can see this willpower in the new Swedish government, but there are no concrete steps yet, he says.
Unless commitments are met, Türkiye cannot ratify a nation’s NATO membership, Çavuşoğlu explained.
“This is entirely a security issue and about the fight against terrorism,” he said.
He noted that NATO wants the membership process for Sweden and Finland to go hand in hand; “If a decision is made about the process, President Erdoğan himself expressed that we would have a more positive view of Finland.”
Çavuşoğlu claimed that Finland refuses to allow an act like the burning of a holy book and considers it a hate crime “despite the same laws that exist in both Finland and Sweden.”
“The mentality of ‘freedom of speech’ will only drag us into chaos,” Çavuşoğlu stressed.
He said that if Sweden were to meet its commitments in the future, Turkey would consider its options, “but as it stands, we cannot say yes.”
“We have established a monitoring mechanism. We will continue this regardless of these provocations,” he said.
Szijjarto, for his part, echoed Çavuşoğlu in expressing Hungarian support for NATO enlargement. “We will assess Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO membership in our parliament in February,” he said.
“I have not put any pressure on the Turkish side to act faster because it is not my job. I leave this to Turkey. I cannot teach the Turkish government lessons,” Szijjarto said.
The Hungarian diplomat also condemned Paludan’s book burning, saying it was “absolutely unacceptable as a Christian that another religion’s holy book was burned.”
“We are talking about a country that wants to join NATO,” Szijjarto pointed out. “Perhaps they should behave a little better. I say these only as an observer; they must show more respect. I repeat, it is unacceptable to burn the book of another religion,” he emphasized.
The ministers discussed further ways to strengthen their defense cooperation, Çavuşoğlu also revealed, noting that it was “quite normal” for two NATO allies to do so.
“Our contact with Hungary at all levels continues increasingly,” he said. “We discuss all aspects of our ties. We would be honored to host their president in our country.”
The meetings were productive and genuine, according to Çavuşoğlu. “Our trade volume is increasing, there is a lot of potential. We have conveyed to Hungary that energy is a priority and we weighed in on how we could strengthen this energy cooperation.”
Türkiye will give all support to bring Azerbaijani gas to Hungary and some of our friends, Çavuşoğlu noted.
The two ministers also commented on the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the Turkish diplomat revealed. “We have sincerely tried to end the war as soon as possible. We know that the war will end on the negotiating table one day and we will continue our confidence-building moves,” he said.
Çavuşoğlu pointed to the Black Sea grain deal, the prisoner exchange and the dialogue created to ensure that a disaster did not break out in Zaporizhzhia, saying that Türkiye’s facilitation of known and unknown many talks has “proved that diplomacy works even during war.”