Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Sunday that the Turkish government is making Sweden a series of demands to accept NATO membership, which Stockholm “cannot and will not meet”.
“[A Turquia] wants things we can’t and won’t give. now the decision [da adesão à Aliança Atlântica] falls on the Turks,” said the Swedish Prime Minister at the People’s and Defense Conference in Stockholm, quoted by the newspaper ‘Aftonbladet’.
The conference was also attended by the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jens Stoltenberg, and the Foreign Minister of Finland, Pekka Haavisto, another country that has also applied to join the NATO, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to protect itself against the threat of Russia, which, like Sweden, depends on the lifting of the Turkish veto.
Turkey has refused to admit the two countries to the Atlantic Alliance until they extradite all individuals accused by Ankara of belonging to Kurdish organizations declared terrorist groups by the Turkish government, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
On the other hand, Turkey also calls for the opening of bilateral arms trade.
Before the conference, the head of Finnish diplomacy assured that Finland will wait for Turkey and Sweden to resolve the disputes.
“We are not in such a rush to join NATO. At least we hope Sweden gets the green light,” Haavisto said.
On the 3rd of this month, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavusoglu urged Finland and Sweden to take “further steps” to meet Ankara’s demands to get Turkey’s “green light” to join of NATO, as “time is running out”.
The accession of a new country to the Atlantic Alliance requires ratification by the parliaments of the 30 member states, a step that everyone except Hungary and Turkey has already taken.
The Turkish government is analyzing the issue of Finland and Sweden joining the Atlantic Alliance with several other countries, including the United States, Çavusoglu added, stressing in this regard that he will meet with his North American counterpart, Antony Blinken, on the 18th. of this month, in Washington.
“To those who ask us about this issue, we say that when the steps are taken, when the commitments are fulfilled, membership will be a fact,” the head of Turkish diplomacy stressed.
In this sense, he alluded to the memoranda signed by Turkey with Sweden and Finland at the end of June 2022 in Madrid, on the sidelines of the NATO summit, in which Ankara puts forward the ratification of its accession to a series of demands.
Among other things, Ankara hopes that the courts of the two countries will extradite a number of people it accuses of terrorism, one of its main demands.
On the other hand, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted that the Turkish parliament could wait until the country’s next general election in June before voting on another extension of the military pact.
Source: DN
