Turkey, which has been blocking Sweden and Finland from joining NATO since May, has demands that Sweden cannot and does not want to meet, the Swedish prime minister said on Sunday.
“Turkey also confirms that we did what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot and do not want to give them,” Ulf Kristersson said of his country’s accession process to the Atlantic Alliance. during a conference on defense and security in the presence of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don’t know when,” he said, before adding: “The decision is in Turkey’s camp.”
“Let’s go little by little”
In late December, Ankara noted “positive steps” taken by Stockholm but called for “other important steps” to remove its objections to Sweden’s NATO entry, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at the time. .
These statements came a few days after the Swedish Supreme Court rejected the extradition of journalist Bülent Kenes, requested by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Only the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments have not ratified the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO. For the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, the process of implementing the memorandum signed between Turkey, Sweden and Finland is “underway”.
“I cannot give a timetable here and now, but the realization of the conditions mentioned in the memorandum is in progress and we are going little by little,” Tobias Billström said during a press conference.
Source: BFM TV
