Turkey will not support Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO until they implement their commitments concerning combating terrorism, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Sunday.
"It is wrong to expect Turkey’s positive decision on the issue of support for [Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO membership], until they keep their word," he said in an interview with Akit TV.
According to the minister, Ankara has not yet received any response from Sweden and Finland to its requests for the extradition of persons involved in terrorist activities.
Turkey said earlier that the memorandum it had signed with Sweden and Finland on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid is not a final one and Turkey’s parliament may turn it down if Stockholm and Helsinki fail to implement their liabilities under this memorandum on combating terrorism.
Stockholm and Helsinki applied for NATO membership on May 18 but the accession process was blocked by Turkey, which demanded these outlaw Kurdish organizations as terrorist, extradite persons accused of terrorism or involvement in the attempted coup in 2016, and lift the bans on weapons supplies to Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andresson, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 28, ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid. The talks yielded a memorandum on Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO, which is to be ratified by all the alliance’s member states.
