Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey will freeze Finland and Sweden’s NATO applications if they do not keep their promises.
Just updated
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It reports the news agency Reuters.
At the end of June, Turkey, Sweden and Finland agreed on a document signed before the NATO summit in Madrid.
The document obliges Sweden and Finland to work with Turkey on issues concerning terrorism and terrorist groups. Sweden and Finland undertake, among other things, to refrain from contact with the Kurdish YPG.
Erdogan says promises to Turkey must be fulfilled before his parliament approves NATO membership. This means, among other things, that Sweden will extradite 73 people to Turkey.
Sweden has announced that any decision on extradition to Turkey will be made by independent courts.
President Erdogan called the deal a “diplomatic victory” in late June.
–In response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Sweden and Finland sought membership in the defense alliance.
In order for new countries to become members of NATO, all current members of the Defense Alliance must say yes to new applications for membership.
Therefore, it is crucial for Swedish and Finnish NATO membership that Erdogan says yes to their applications.
Correction: The first version of this case stated that Erdogan threatened to freeze Finnish and German NATO membership. The right thing should of course be that it is about Finnish and Swedish membership. The error was corrected on 18.07.2022 at 17.26.
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