Turkey sets conditions for its parliament to approve Sweden and Finland’s applications to join NATO.
Reuters reported that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on January 15 that Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before the Turkish parliament approves the proposal. NATO membership of two Nordic countries.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year after Russia launched a military campaign in Ukraine, but their applications need to be approved by all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to approve the aspirations of Helsinki and Stockholm.
Turkey asked Sweden to take a clearer stance against what Ankara considers terrorists, mainly individuals related to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the group that Turkey considers to be terrorists. Ky is accused of plotting a coup in 2016.
Ankara, the US and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist because it organized an uprising in the 1980s against Turkey.
“If you don’t hand over the terrorists to us, we won’t be able to pass (the application to join NATO) in the parliament. For the Turkish parliament to pass, your country must first hand over more than one country,” he said. 100, about 130 terrorists for us,” Erdogan said.
Earlier, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerss stated that they would not fulfill all the conditions set by Ankara: “Turkey confirmed that Sweden did what we said we would do, but they also say they want things we can’t or don’t want to give them.”
Prime Minister Kristersson said that the requests from Turkey that Sweden could not fulfill, or did not want to fulfill, were outside the scope of the trilateral agreement.
“Turkey has repeatedly mentioned the individuals it wants to extradite from Sweden. I have said that those matters must be handled according to Swedish law,” he said.
Sweden and Finland signed a trilateral agreement with Turkey last year with the goal of negotiating to convince Ankara to agree to let the two countries join the military alliance.
Ankara has expressed disappointment with a decision late last year from a top Swedish court to block a request to extradite a journalist accused of having links to Islamic scholar Fetullah Gulen, who is detained by Turkey. Turkey suspects a coup attempt.
Russia currently shares a 1,215km land border with NATO member states. When Finland joins NATO, this number will increase to 2,600km. The expansion of NATO presence at the gateway makes Russia uneasy because Moscow has long considered this a major threat to its security.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev once warned that Moscow would place many nuclear weapons on the doorstep of Sweden and Finland when these two countries officially join NATO.
