The diplomatic mission sent by Finland and Sweden to guarantee Turkey’s support for the participation of the two Scandinavian countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ended before an agreement could be reached.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman, İbrahim Kalın, stressed that after the round of negotiations that ended in Ankara on Wednesday (25th), the three sides could not reach an agreement, but that the dialogue would “continue”. .
According to Kalın, Turkey is calling for the end of Finland and Sweden’s support for “terrorist” groups to support the two countries’ NATO candidacy.
Ankara accuses Helsinki and Stockholm of sheltering militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a movement that fought to establish a Kurdish state and is considered a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.
“We don’t send money to terrorist organizations, frankly, we don’t send weapons,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said at a press conference in Stockholm on Wednesday.
Also, a source from the Euro-Atlantic alliance told ANSA that Turkey’s veto threat was troubling the US, the military organization’s main financier.
“If the strategy is to get concessions from the US and other allies, they get the opposite effect,” he said.
Finland and Sweden maintained a historic policy of military neutrality between the West and Moscow, but abandoned this strategy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is not part of NATO.
The two Scandinavian countries are expected to attend the next alliance meeting in Madrid at the end of June, although the membership process is still ongoing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said he did not see Finland and Sweden joining NATO as a “threat”, but warned that Moscow’s response would depend on the organization’s military presence in both countries.
source: Noticias
