NATO accession: Erdogan invites Sweden and Finland to a crisis meeting

Created: 05/25/2022, 12:48 p.m

From: Julius Fastnacht

Ankara is making concrete demands for Sweden and Finland to agree to NATO membership.

Today there are talks in Turkey: the news ticker.

• Northward expansion of NATO:

  Sweden and Finland apply for NATO membership.

• Erdogan threatens to veto:

  President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens to veto NATO accession for both countries.

• Negotiations in Ankara:

  Erdogan receives delegations from Sweden and Finland in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, for the crisis meeting.

• All information and news about the negotiations for Sweden and Finland to join NATO in our newsticker.

Ankara – Ankara is expecting the Finnish and Swedish delegations to hold talks about their NATO membership applications today (May 25).

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced this on Tuesday.

Turkey is currently blocking the start of the process of admitting the two Nordic countries into the defense alliance.

Ankara accuses the accession candidates of supporting "terrorist organizations", referring to the banned Kurdish Workers' Party PKK, the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG and the Gülen movement.

Turkey: NATO veto for domestic reasons

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, is currently still opposed to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

© Turkish Presidency/AP/dpa

The country's stance is at odds with the other 29 members of the alliance, which support NATO expansion in view of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ahmet Erdi Özturk, Professor of Politics and International Relations at London Metropolitan University, told the news channel Al Jazeera that Turkey's position was mainly due to domestic political considerations.

"We should not forget that Erdogan made these political changes to win the next elections," he said.

In principle, Turkey is not opposed to Nordic NATO membership at all, but it does make several demands that it would like to see fulfilled.

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• Sweden severed political relations with Kurdish groups

• Sweden and Finland expel selected PKK supporters and supporters of the Gülen movement

• Suspension of Swedish aid payments to northern Syria

• Stop of Swedish arms deliveries to the Kurdish militia YPG

• Lifting of the Swedish arms embargo that the country imposed on Turkey for fighting the Kurds in Syria.

As Al Jazeera reports, NATO officials assume that the standstill could be resolved shortly.

In order to accelerate the accession of the countries, it is quite possible that NATO will make concessions to Turkey.

(juf/dpa)