US: Turkey’s NATO issues with Sweden, Finland can 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 could be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the end of subsequent month.

At a information convention in Washington with visiting Finnish Overseas Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken stated the U.S. has no purpose to consider Turkey’s concerns cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey’s top diplomat stated Finland and Sweden must take “concrete steps” before Ankara may assist their membership.

“The USA absolutely supports Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I proceed to be confident that each will quickly be NATO members,” Blinken stated. “We look ahead to having the ability to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto mentioned his country and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their considerations in recent days and stated those discussions would continue with an eye towards resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid on the end of June.

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

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

The international locations’ membership bids require support from all 30 current NATO international locations, but Turkey, which instructions 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 sales to Turkey.

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

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

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s safety concerns however ... everybody also wants to know Turkey’s legit security concerns.”

Turkey this week listed five “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, together with what it mentioned was “termination of political help for terrorism,” an “elimination of the supply 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 against 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 sturdy assist for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

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

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

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the warfare at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine