Monitoring Desk
HELSINKI: The foreign ministers of Finland and Sweden reiterated on Saturday that the process to join NATO is continuing despite Ankara saying Sweden shouldn’t expect Turkey to approve its membership.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström admitted in an interview with Swedish media that Turkish anger over recent incident of burning of the holy Qur’an in Stockholm has complicated Sweden’s Nato accession.
Finland-Sweden-Turkiye
Billström said that they are looking toward the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania in July. Turkiye and Hungary are the only nations in the 30-member Nato that have not signed off on Sweden’s and Finland’s applications.
While Hungary has promised to do so in February, Turkish Minister for foreign affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu said that a scheduled meeting in Brussels to discuss Finland and Sweden’s Nato membership was postponed.
He said that such a meeting would have been “meaningless” after the events of last weekend in Stockholm.
Read Also: US Terms Desecration of Holy Quran in Sweden ‘Reprehensible’ But Avoids Direct Condemnation
Finnish minister for foreign affairs Pekka Haavisto said the two countries planned to continue making a joint effort toward Nato.
The minister said that Ankara’s announcement to defer trilateral negotiation with Sweden, Finland, and Turkiye for now “an extension of time, and that the matter can be revisited following the Turkish polls”.
