Brussels, June 27 (AFP\/APP): Finnish and Swedish leaders will discuss their stalled NATO bids with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday in a push to convince him at the start of a summit in Madrid.<\/p>\n
But Ankara said the four-way meeting, which will also involve NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, did not mean it was close to lifting objections to the two Nordic countries joining the military bloc.<\/p>\n
Officials said Monday the leaders will meet in Madrid, in a last-ditch bid to break to deadlock that threatens to overshadow the NATO summit, which will focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Representatives from Ankara, Helsinki and Stockholm held a fresh round of talks on Monday at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels to try to hammer out the differences.<\/p>\n
“My strong hope is that this dialogue can be successfully concluded in the near future, ideally before the summit,” said Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson after meeting Stoltenberg in Brussels.<\/p>\n
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year saw the two Nordic countries abandon decades of military non-alignment by applying in May for NATO membership.<\/p>\n
But the joint membership bid, initially believed to be a speedy process, has been delayed by objections from NATO member Turkey.<\/p>\n
– ‘Safe haven’ –<\/p>\n
Ankara has accused Finland and Sweden particularly of providing a safe haven for outlawed Kurdish militants whose decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state has claimed tens of thousands of lives.<\/p>\n
The Turkish leader has also called on Sweden and Finland to lift arms embargoes imposed against Turkey in 2019 over Ankara’s military offensive in Syria.<\/p>\n
Erdogan signalled over the weekend that no progress had been made in Sweden’s bid to join NATO, urging Stockholm to take “concrete actions” to meet Ankara’s concerns.<\/p>\n
He said Monday that Turkey “will provide documents and images demonstrating our interlocutors’ hypocrisy” towards groups Ankara views as terrorists.<\/p>\n
Andersson insisted at NATO that “Sweden is not and will not be a safe haven for terrorists” and said Stockholm had sought to address Turkish concerns over extradition requests lodged by Ankara.<\/p>\n
“The relevant authorities work intensively in order to expel persons who could be a security threat,” Andersson said.<\/p>\n
“And there are a substantial number of cases which are currently being processed.”<\/p>\n
Turkish officials said Ankara does not view the summit as a final deadline for resolving its objections.<\/p>\n
Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser said Tuesday’s four-way meeting did not mean that an agreement was imminent.<\/p>\n
– ‘Serious changes’ –<\/p>\n
“Participating in this summit does not mean that we will step back from our position,” Ibrahim Kalin told HaberTurk channel.<\/p>\n
“We are conducting a negotiation. It has many stages.”<\/p>\n
Kalin said Finland and Sweden need to make “serious changes” to their laws “and constitution” — targeting outlawed Kurdish militants.<\/p>\n
“We want you to show the same change against the PKK and its affiliated YPG, PYD and similar structures,” he said, referring to Kurdish groups operating in Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n
Stoltenberg insisted that Sweden had “taken concrete steps in recent days to directly address Turkey’s concerns”.<\/p>\n
“You have already amended Swedish law. You have launched new police investigations against the PKK and you are currently looking at Turkish extradition requests,” he told Andersson.<\/p>\n
“These concrete steps represents a paradigm shift in Sweden’s approach to terrorism.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brussels, June 27 (AFP\/APP): Finnish and Swedish leaders will discuss their stalled NATO bids with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday in a push to convince him at the start of a summit in Madrid. But Ankara said the four-way meeting, which will also […]<\/p>\n
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