Turkey’s president on Thursday ruled out the possibility of Sweden being given the “green light” to join NATO at the July summit in Lithuania, insisting that the Swedish government “must live up to its commitments” in the fight against the terrorism.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed that “if nothing extraordinary happens” he will attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Vilnius, where he acknowledged that Stockholm “has some expectations”.
Both the Swedish government and the Atlantic Alliance itself are confident that the parties will be able to overcome the differences and that the Nordic country will eventually become the 32nd member state at the Vilnius Summit.
The Turkish leader, who addressed journalists on his return from a visit to the northern part of Cyprus, insisted that for now he cannot live up to the expectations of Sweden, which, according to the news of the Associated Press (AP) agency, constitutes “a bath with cold water”.
Moreover, the setback comes as Ankara is hosting a quadripartite meeting next Tuesday with representatives from NATO, Turkey, Sweden and also Finland, which recently joined the Atlantic Alliance.
Erdogan insisted there are “terrorists demonstrating in the streets of Sweden”, a reference to the pro-Kurdish movements Turkey wants to stop, namely in relation to possible support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In the past year, the Turkish government has also criticized the burning of copies of the Quran.
“What are security forces for, what should they do to stop the activities [terroristas]?”Erdogan asked, according to the Turkish daily Hurriyet.
Turkey believes that Sweden has not yet fulfilled all the agreements it signed in June 2022 in the framework of the summit of leaders hosted by Spain.
NATO is not optimistic about Sweden’s accession, which has been delayed for more than a year, in the run-up to the Lithuania summit (11-12 July), but was at least confident that Erdogan would make it during the forum itself, so that it could become effective in October, when the Turkish parliament reconvened after the summer recess.
In addition to Turkey, Sweden still needs support from Hungary, although everything indicates that the two countries are moving towards an agreement.
In a recent interview with the Turkish news agency Anatolia, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto confirmed that the two countries are mutually analyzing “future steps” on the matter.
Hungary’s reluctance towards Sweden stems from the alleged “insults” it has been targeted.
“They say that Hungary is not a democracy, but a dictatorship”complained the Hungarian diplomat, who believes that the Swedish authorities meddle in internal affairs that do not concern them.
Source: DN
