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

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday he’s assured 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 at the finish of next month.

At a news convention in Washington with visiting Finnish Overseas Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken mentioned the U.S. has no cause to consider Turkey’s issues can't be addressed. His comments got here after Turkey’s high diplomat said Finland and Sweden must take “concrete steps” earlier than Ankara may help their membership.

“The United States fully supports Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I continue to be assured that each will soon be NATO members,” Blinken mentioned. “We stay up for being able to call Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto stated his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their issues in current days and mentioned these 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 think that these problems might be solved that Turkey has been raising. We hope that some outcomes may very well be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written functions to hitch NATO final week. The transfer represents one of the largest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s war in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s security map.

The international locations’ membership bids require help from all 30 current NATO nations, however Turkey, which instructions the second-largest military within the alliance, is objecting to them. It has cited alleged assist 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 paperwork detailing Turkey’s considerations, like information on terror groups, throughout their visit to Turkey this week. He said Ankara is awaiting specific answers.

Cavusoglu said “an method of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we are pals and allies’ would not be appropriate.” He insisted that “these nations must take concrete steps.”

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s safety considerations but ... everyone additionally needs to understand Turkey’s professional safety considerations.”

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

The demands also known as for the lifting of arms sanctions towards Turkey and global cooperation towards terrorism.

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

“There is no such thing as a doubt that we do need the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance with a purpose to make it stronger,” Polish Overseas Minister Zbigniew Rau stated.

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

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