Before the upcoming NATO summit, a new statement came from the USA regarding the crisis between Turkey, Sweden and Finland.
Speaking at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US Undersecretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried stated that as Washington, they observed that the talks between the parties this week were constructive.
“We are confident that this will be resolved positively. There is broad and serious support across the NATO alliance for the membership of Finland and Sweden,” Donfried said.
Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The approval of all 30 members of the alliance is required for the admission of new members to NATO. Turkey, which opposes the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland, cites the aforementioned countries’ stance on organizations such as the PKK and DHKP-C as a justification for this approach. Ankara also reacts to the fact that these two countries do not allow some arms sales to Turkey.
NATO leaders will meet in Madrid, Spain, on 29-30 June.
Asked whether he thought the parties would meet at a common point until the summit in Madrid, the US official replied, “Of course, we are trying to make it happen.”
Turkish side cautious
Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın and Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador Sedat Önal met with representatives from Sweden, Finland and NATO in Brussels at the beginning of the week and discussed the membership crisis.
After the talks, Turkish officials, who used more cautious expressions compared to the last statements of the US official Donfried, gave the signal that a possible reconciliation could be delayed after the NATO summit. Kalin said that the sooner Sweden and Finland make the legal arrangements for Turkey’s demands, the process will “accelerate in a more positive direction, progress in a more positive direction and gain momentum”. “We will see this together in the coming days,” Kalin added.
The possibility of bilateral talks between Erdogan and Biden
Many experts are of the opinion that, even though the problem is between Turkey, Sweden and Finland, overcoming the crisis would be easier if US President Joe Biden was more directly involved in the solution process.
It is interpreted that this involvement may be in the form of a bilateral meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Biden.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters that there are no bilateral meetings planned with Erdogan in the US President’s schedule for the upcoming G7 and NATO summits, Reuters reported. However, the official added that these summits also create ample opportunities for non-scheduled talks in terms of format.
Erdogan and Biden last held a bilateral meeting within the scope of the G20 summit held in Rome, the capital of Italy, in October 2021.
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