US: Turkey’s NATO issues with Sweden, Finland might be mounted

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated Friday he’s assured Turkey’s objections to Finland and Sweden becoming a member of NATO could be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the finish of next month.

At a information conference in Washington with visiting Finnish International Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken mentioned the U.S. has no purpose to believe Turkey’s considerations can't be addressed. His feedback got here after Turkey’s top diplomat stated Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara could support their membership.

“The USA fully supports Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I continue to be assured that both will soon be NATO members,” Blinken mentioned. “We stay up for with the ability to call Finland and Sweden our allies.”

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

“We agreed to continue to these talks,” Haavisto mentioned. “We expect that these problems will be solved that Turkey has been elevating. We hope that some results might be achieved earlier than the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written applications to hitch NATO last week. The move represents one of many biggest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s battle in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s safety map.

The countries’ membership bids require assist from all 30 present NATO countries, but Turkey, which instructions the second-largest army in 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 paperwork detailing Turkey’s issues, like info on terror teams, throughout their go to to Turkey this week. He stated Ankara is awaiting specific answers.

Cavusoglu said “an approach of ‘we’ll persuade Turkey in time anyway, we're friends and allies’ wouldn't be appropriate.” He insisted that “these countries need to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we understand Finland and Sweden’s security considerations but ... everybody additionally needs to understand Turkey’s official safety concerns.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, including what it mentioned 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 additionally called for the lifting of arms sanctions in opposition to Turkey and global cooperation towards terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments came at a news convention with the visiting foreign ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, both of whom expressed robust assist for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

“There is no doubt that we do want the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance to be able 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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