In June 2022, Turkey, Finland and Sweden agreed on a joint agreement that would lead to the path into NATO being open for the two Nordic countries.
But Turkey has refused to ratify Sweden’s NATO application, while Finland is a member as of today.
The moderate and former foreign minister Carl Bildt participated in Aktuellt on Tuesday evening and said that the trilateral agreement that was concluded, which meant, among other things, that Sweden would introduce tougher terrorism legislation, was not binding enough for Turkey.
– They never promised to ratify us and approve us as a member, that was the problem, he says.
Linde: Turkey changed
Sweden was instead given the status of invited country, “invitee”, which means that it participates in some work within NATO but does not have all the security guarantees that full members enjoy.
But when then Foreign Minister Ann Linde (S) met her Turkish counterpart before the agreement was signed, she was told that Sweden was welcome.
– He literally said that we were welcome, both Finland and Sweden, and Erdogan said the same thing to the Finnish president. We then felt that we could deal with other problems we had with Turkey alongside the NATO process itself.
Do you mean they lied, or why did they say that?
– It is just to state that they said one thing before and then they changed their mind.