Turkey resumes talks with Sweden and Finland

Turkey announced the resumption of talks with Sweden and Finland on March 9. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu clarified Monday, following a meeting with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjárt, that the meeting could take place in Brussels, where the Atlantic Alliance is based.

"Turkey's position is very clear. We have always said: terrorism is one of the two threats to NATO. I think our concerns about terrorism should be allayed by the two candidate countries. In Sweden such actions are still going on: it is a hate crime, a crime against humanity. Regardless of religion, these actions are unacceptable. As an international community, we must fight them. "We cannot say yes to Sweden's membership in NATO without seeing steps in this direction," Çavuşoğlu said.

Recall that Turkey in late January postponed a trilateral meeting scheduled for February after anti-Turkish and anti-Islamic demonstrations. The Swedish authorities' decision to allow a demonstration at the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, during which a Quran was burned, angered Ankara.

During a visit to the Turkish capital in mid-February, the NATO secretary general called for "immediate" integration of Finland and Sweden, whose applications to join the alliance have been blocked by Ankara since last May.

Turkey accuses Sweden, among other things, of harboring Kurdish fighters and supporters it calls "terrorists," particularly members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party.

In early February, Turkey's president suggested that his country's parliament could ratify Finland's accession without Sweden.

For reference: The leaders of 30 NATO member states decided to invite Stockholm and Helsinki to join the alliance at a summit in Madrid in June 2022. All member states have signed the accession protocols and 28 have ratified them. Only Turkey and Hungary have not ratified the agreements; the Hungarian parliament is scheduled to vote on them in early March.