Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has, in a telephone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, aired further objections to Swedish and Finnish membership in the NATO defense alliance.
According to the Turkish President’s Office, Erdogan stated that Sweden’s and Finland’s contacts with individuals and institutions affiliated with the PKK and YPG run counter to the spirit of NATO.
The Kurdish guerrilla organization PKK is branded terrorist by Turkey, the USA and the EU – and thus also Sweden. The YPG, on the other hand, took the lead as the Western allies in the war effort against the terrorist movement IS in Syria.
Turkey has made a number of demands to admit Sweden and Finland into the defense alliance. A list has been published aimed at Sweden. It contains, among other things, demands that Sweden stop providing “political support for terrorism”.
Sweden, the USA and the EU do not classify the YPG as terrorists. Turkey, on the other hand, equates the YPG with the PKK.
The conversation between Macron and Erdogan was also about the war in Ukraine.