US: Turkey’s NATO issues 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 becoming a member of NATO may be overcome swiftly, probably in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the end of subsequent month.

At a news convention in Washington with visiting Finnish International Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken mentioned the U.S. has no motive to imagine Turkey’s issues cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey’s top diplomat stated Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” earlier than Ankara may help their membership.

“America absolutely supports Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I continue to be confident that each will soon be NATO members,” Blinken stated. “We sit up for having the ability to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto mentioned his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their concerns in latest days and said these discussions would continue with an eye towards resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid on the finish of June.

“We agreed to proceed to those talks,” Haavisto stated. “We predict that these issues could be solved that Turkey has been elevating. We hope that some results may very well be achieved earlier than the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written functions to join NATO last week. The move represents one of the largest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s battle in Ukraine and will rewrite Europe’s security map.

The international locations’ membership bids require assist from all 30 current NATO countries, but Turkey, which instructions the second-largest navy in the alliance, is objecting to them. It has cited alleged support for Kurdish militants whom Turkey considers terrorists and restrictions on weapons sales to Turkey.

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

Cavusoglu said “an method of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we're associates and allies’ wouldn't be correct.” He insisted that “these countries must take concrete steps.”

He added that “we understand Finland and Sweden’s safety issues but ... everyone also needs to understand Turkey’s respectable security considerations.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, together with 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 demands also called for the lifting of arms sanctions against Turkey and world cooperation against terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments got here at a information convention with the visiting international 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 need the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance as a way to make it stronger,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said.

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

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