Later this month: NATO candidates talk with Turkey

This month
NATO candidates talk with Turkey

08/19/2022, 11:31 PM

The government in Ankara has long stood in the way of Sweden and Finland’s NATO ambitions and set conditions. Their implementation should be discussed at the first meeting. Northern European countries agree to scrutinize extradition requests.

In the context of Turkey’s demands on NATO accession candidates Finland and Sweden, representatives of the three countries will hold talks in Finland later this month. This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland, Pekka Haavisto. Although he did not specify a date, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had earlier announced that the meeting would take place on August 26.

After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May, breaking with decades of military alliance neutrality. The process of joining the alliance has begun. However, each of the 30 member states must ratify access.

Turkey was the only country to threaten NATO’s veto. Turkey has accused Sweden and Finland of harboring dozens of Turkish terror suspects and is demanding their extradition. They are mainly members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Islamist cleric Fethullah Gülen’s movement.

In an agreement signed by Sweden and Finland at a NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June, the two countries pledged to “swiftly and thoroughly” investigate Turkish extradition requests. At this month’s meeting, Havisto said talks on the deal should continue. The foreign minister explained that in future, the meetings of the representatives of the three countries should take place alternately in Finland, Sweden and Turkey.

Last week, Sweden announced the first deportation of a Turkish citizen since the deal. However, Turkey’s Justice Ministry said the extradition fell far short of Stockholm’s commitments under the deal.