US: Turkey’s NATO issues with Sweden, Finland can be fastened

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned Friday he’s confident Turkey’s objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO can be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the finish of next month.

At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Overseas Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken stated the U.S. has no reason to imagine Turkey’s considerations cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey’s high diplomat stated Finland and Sweden must take “concrete steps” before Ankara could assist their membership.

“The US fully helps Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I continue to be confident that both will soon be NATO members,” Blinken mentioned. “We sit up for having the ability to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto stated his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their considerations in current days and mentioned these discussions would continue with a watch toward resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid on the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to those talks,” Haavisto said. “We think that these issues could be solved that Turkey has been elevating. We hope that some results could be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written purposes to hitch NATO final week. The move represents one of many largest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s war in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s safety map.

The nations’ membership bids require support from all 30 present NATO nations, but Turkey, which commands the second-largest military in the alliance, is objecting to them. It has cited alleged support for Kurdish militants whom Turkey considers terrorists and restrictions on weapons gross sales to Turkey.

Earlier Friday, Turkish International Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given documents detailing Turkey’s concerns, like information on terror teams, throughout their go to to Turkey this week. He mentioned Ankara is awaiting particular answers.

Cavusoglu stated “an approach of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we are associates and allies’ would not be right.” He insisted that “these countries must take concrete steps.”

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s safety concerns but ... everybody also needs to know Turkey’s respectable safety concerns.”

Turkey this week listed five “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, including what it mentioned was “termination of political help for terrorism,” an “elimination of the supply of terrorism financing,” and the “cessation of arms help” to the banned PKK and a Syrian Kurdish militia group affiliated with it.

The demands also known as for the lifting of arms sanctions towards Turkey and international cooperation towards terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s feedback got here at a information convention with the visiting international ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, each of whom expressed robust assist for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

“There is no doubt that we do want the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance in order to make it stronger,” Polish International Minister Zbigniew Rau mentioned.

Romanian Overseas Minister Bogdan Aurescu, agreed, saying their membership would “consolidate the collective protection and our safety.”

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