The talks that took place earlier this week with a Swedish and a Finnish delegation in Ankara on the countries’ NATO applications did not reach the “desired level”, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reports the Turkish state news agency Anatolia.
Late on Saturday, Erdogan told reporters after a trip to Azerbaijan that “unfortunately, the talks held between our delegation and Finland and Sweden have not reached the desired level”.
According to Erdogan, Sweden and Finland have had expectations of the talks, but that the countries have not taken the necessary steps to meet Turkey’s demands and pressed that “terrorists continue to walk the streets of Stockholm and that Sweden defends them with its own police”.
“We can not repeat the mistakes we have made in the past by letting countries that embrace and nurture terrorists into NATO, which is a security organization,” Erdogan continued, according to the news agency.
Turkey has opposed supporting a Swedish and a Finnish NATO application and claims, among other things, that the Nordic countries support organizations linked to the PKK.