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

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 might be overcome swiftly, presumably in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the end 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 imagine Turkey’s considerations cannot be addressed. His feedback got here after Turkey’s high diplomat said Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara might help their membership.

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

Haavisto stated his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their considerations in current days and mentioned those discussions would proceed with an eye towards resolving them before the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to these talks,” Haavisto said. “We predict that these issues could be solved that Turkey has been raising. We hope that some results might be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written functions to join NATO final week. The move represents one of many largest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s struggle in Ukraine and will rewrite Europe’s safety map.

The international locations’ membership bids require support from all 30 current NATO nations, however 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 Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given paperwork detailing Turkey’s issues, like information on terror teams, throughout their go to to Turkey this week. He stated Ankara is awaiting specific solutions.

Cavusoglu said “an method of ‘we’ll convince 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 understand Finland and Sweden’s security concerns but ... everyone also wants to understand Turkey’s reliable security issues.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, including what it said was “termination of political help for terrorism,” an “elimination of the source of terrorism financing,” and the “cessation of arms support” to the banned PKK and a Syrian Kurdish militia group affiliated with it.

The demands additionally referred to as for the lifting of arms sanctions towards Turkey and global cooperation towards terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s feedback came at a information convention with the visiting overseas ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, each 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 as a way to make it stronger,” Polish Overseas Minister Zbigniew Rau said.

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

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