Calay News
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Turkey will give the green light to Finland’s accession to NATO, while accession negotiations with Sweden will continue. Erdogan made this announcement during a press conference in Ankara together with his Finnish counterpart, Sauli Niinistö. The Finnish president welcomed the decision and noted that the Turkish Parliament will start working on the ratification of Finland’s accession, which is very important for the whole of Finland.
Turkey, one of the biggest supporters of NATO’s “open door” policy, has seen that Finland has taken sincere steps to fulfill the promises contained in the tripartite Madrid memorandum signed last July. The coalition of Erdogan’s Islamist AKP party and the nationalist MHP has a majority in Parliament, and the opposition has not opposed Finland’s membership in the Atlantic Alliance either, so the passage through the legislature will be an easy process.
On the other hand, Turkish support for Sweden is still up in the air because they have not taken a positive step regarding a list of “terrorists” that Ankara wants to extradite. According to Erdogan, Sweden has opened its arms to terrorists and has not heeded Turkish demands to extradite people it considers linked to terrorist organizations, especially from the Kurdish sphere. Although Turkey removed the veto of Sweden and Finland during last July’s NATO summit, negotiations with Sweden appear to have stalled.
In January, Ankara walked away from the table in response to the burning of a copy of the Koran by a Danish right-winger in front of the Turkish embassy. This was followed by demonstrations by pro-Kurdish groups in the capital, in which they hung a dummy depicting the Turkish leader. Erdogan has pointed out that they are not against Sweden, but the lack of cooperation in the extradition of the alleged terrorists has affected Turkey’s position towards Sweden.
Niinistö wanted to show his support for his neighboring country and reminded it that Sweden should also join the Alliance. Sweden will not take any additional steps beyond what was agreed at the NATO summit in June in Madrid in the memorandum with Turkey and Finland to join the alliance, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said. The new anti-terrorism legislation expected to be passed by the Swedish Parliament on June 1 will be the “last piece of the puzzle.”
