The President of Turkey commented on the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden in a television program broadcast on Sunday evening.
20:39•Updated 21:02
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made it clear in his televised speech that Turkey could ratify Finland’s NATO membership without accepting Sweden’s membership.
– If there is a need, we can give a different answer for Finland. And when we give this different answer regarding Finland, Sweden gets shocked.
– But only if Finland does not make the same mistake, Erdoğan said in a television program broadcast on Sunday evening.
In his speech, the President did not further specify how Turkey’s response to Finland would differ from the response to Sweden.
However, it was the first time that Erdoğan signaled that Turkey could accept Finland into NATO without Sweden.
In the same context, Erdoğan repeated Turkey’s demands to Sweden.
– If you absolutely want to join NATO, you return these terrorists to us.
Earlier on Sunday, Sweden’s NATO negotiator Oscar Stenström reported that Sweden and Turkey have jointly decided to temporarily suspend negotiations on the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership.
The program broadcast on Sunday evening, in which Erdoğan expressed his comments, was already recorded on Friday in the northwestern Turkish city of Bilecik. The President also spoke about several other topics in the program.
Finland and Sweden have both emphasized that the purpose is to progress towards NATO membership together and not separately.
Foreign minister Pekka Haavisto (green) could not be reached to comment on Erdoğan’s speeches on Sunday evening. Department head of the political department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Piritta Asunmaa notes that the ministry is currently completely dependent on media information regarding the issue. According to Asunmaa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has received no evidence that the ratification of Finland’s NATO membership in Turkey has progressed.
Senior researcher at the Foreign Policy Institute Toni Alaranta according to Erdoğan’s statement contains a small veiled threat.
– It refers to the demonstrations in Sweden, and that such activities should not be seen in Finland.
Sources: Reuters, AFP