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

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

At a information conference in Washington with visiting Finnish International Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the U.S. has no motive to believe Turkey’s concerns cannot be addressed. His comments got here after Turkey’s top diplomat mentioned Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara could help their membership.

“The US totally supports Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I proceed to be confident that each will quickly be NATO members,” Blinken said. “We sit up for 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 recent days and said these discussions would proceed with an eye toward resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid on the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to these talks,” Haavisto said. “We expect that these issues might be solved that Turkey has been raising. We hope that some results could possibly be achieved earlier than the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written applications to hitch NATO final week. The transfer 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 current NATO nations, but Turkey, which instructions the second-largest military 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 International Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given paperwork detailing Turkey’s concerns, like info on terror teams, throughout their go to to Turkey this week. He stated Ankara is awaiting specific answers.

Cavusoglu stated “an approach of ‘we’ll persuade Turkey in time anyway, we're buddies and allies’ would not be right.” He insisted that “these nations need to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we understand Finland and Sweden’s security considerations but ... everyone additionally wants to understand Turkey’s official security issues.”

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

The demands also called for the lifting of arms sanctions in opposition to Turkey and international cooperation in opposition to terrorism.

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

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

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

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