US: Turkey’s NATO points with Sweden, Finland will be fixed

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

At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the U.S. has no cause to believe Turkey’s issues cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey’s prime diplomat mentioned Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” earlier than Ankara could support their membership.

“The US fully supports Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I continue to be assured that each will quickly be NATO members,” Blinken stated. “We look ahead to having the ability to call Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto mentioned his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their considerations in latest days and mentioned those discussions would proceed with a watch towards resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid on the finish of June.

“We agreed to continue to those talks,” Haavisto mentioned. “We expect that these issues will be solved that Turkey has been raising. We hope that some results could be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written purposes to hitch NATO last week. The transfer represents one of many greatest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s battle in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s security map.

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

Earlier Friday, Turkish Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given paperwork detailing Turkey’s concerns, like information on terror teams, throughout their visit to Turkey this week. He stated Ankara is awaiting specific solutions.

Cavusoglu mentioned “an approach of ‘we’ll persuade Turkey in time anyway, we are buddies and allies’ would not be appropriate.” He insisted that “these countries have to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s safety considerations however ... everybody additionally needs to grasp Turkey’s legit security issues.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, including what it stated was “termination of political support for terrorism,” an “elimination of the source of terrorism financing,” and the “cessation of arms help” to the banned PKK and a Syrian Kurdish militia group affiliated with it.

The calls for also called for the lifting of arms sanctions against Turkey and global cooperation against terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments came at a news conference with the visiting foreign ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, each of whom expressed sturdy assist for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

“There isn't a doubt that we do need the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance in order to make it stronger,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said.

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

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