Turkey declined a meeting, led by a high-ranking NATO official, with Sweden and Finland, which was scheduled for Wednesday. It reports Financial Times with reference to a source of transparency. Turkey claims that Sweden and Finland support the Kurdish militia YPG, and demands a stop to it to say yes to NATO applications. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu said on Wednesday that the demands must be met before it is ready to negotiate, and he also believes that the latest documents Sweden has sent to the Turkish government do not live up to expectations.
Discussions are ongoing in Brussels
The NATO process is one of the main topics at NATO’s ongoing meeting of Defense Ministers in Brussels. According to TT, US NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith says that she would like to see the Nordic countries as future members in time for the NATO summit in Madrid in two weeks. The fact that the process will be completed before the summit is something that Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has pointed out as important, and according to Julianne Smith, there is a will within NATO to speed up the process.
On Wednesday, Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist (S) met Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar in Brussels – but he did not want to say how the conversation went.
– Of course we reasoned, but I do not intend to go into what we said. It is a dialogue between Turkey and Sweden, there are also several NATO countries involved, says Hultqvist in Aktuellt.
Jens Stoltenberg: “Be more optimistic then”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is convinced that Sweden and Finland will become members, but admits that he was quick when he previously talked about how fast the NATO process can go, reports TT.
– I was more optimistic then, that’s correct. But until Turkey expressed its concern, we had no reason to believe that this would be a problem for NATO members. Then a certain concern has been put on the table and now it will take a little more time, Stoltenberg said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Akif Çağatay Kılıç, Chairman of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, has said that Turkey will not give in in the first place. According to The Guardian he says that Turkey is prepared to delay the membership of Sweden and Finland for a year if necessary.