Monitoring Desk
ANKARA: Ankara said on Saturday it was “not in a position” to approve Sweden’s NATO membership, despite a series of measures taken by Stockholm to meet Turkiye’s demands.
Turkish President’s foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin said that they are not in a position to send a law of ratification to the parliament. Finland and Sweden are unlikely to join NATO before June, said the senior Turkish official.
Ankara-Stockholm
The two countries applied to join NATO in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, but their membership must be endorsed by all thirty NATO countries.
Only Hungary and Turkiye have yet to approve the deal, with Ankara linking accession to tight counterterrorism steps. Ibrahim Kalin said that it depends on how fast the two countries move and how deep they move on these matters.
Ankara has demanded that Finland and Sweden adopt strict laws to strap in the activities of supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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Kalin said that the schedule for presidential and parliamentary polls in Turkiye can also play a role in this regard.
Officials from Sweden Turkiye, and Finland will hold a meeting in Brussels in February, but Kalin warned that incidents like the hanging of a dummy of Erdogan in Stockholm on Wednesday can have a negative effect on talks.
