The time is “now” for Turkey to ratify Finland and Sweden’s bids to join NATO, the alliance’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Thursday.
Stoltenberg was speaking at a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu during his visit to capital Ankara to discuss NATO support for Turkey after the devastating twin earthquakes of 6 February that have killed nearly 40,000 people.
“The NATO memberships of Sweden and Finland indeed will also be on the agenda,” Çavuşoğlu said at the same event. The Turkish minister then repeated Turkey’s “security concerns” over the two Nordic countries’ accession to the military alliance.
There are still “certain steps” Sweden should take, Çavuşoğlu said. “And the provocations that took place, they have not been beneficial – especially the provocations in Sweden have not contributed positively.”
Stoltenberg himself said the incident where far-right activists burned a copy of the Quran was “disgraceful”, and that the Swedish government’s response should be “praised”.
“For me, this just demonstrates that Sweden and Finland understand and are implementing policies which recognize the concerns that Turkey expressed. And this is why I think that time has come to ratify,” Stoltenberg said.
However, Çavuşoğlu merely repeated Turkey’s claims that Sweden was “allowing propaganda” for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey designates a terrorist organisation.
While Sweden also designates the PKK a terrorist organisation, there is a sizeable Kurdish population in the country who have sought asylum due to Turkey’s disproportionate targeting of Kurds and exceedingly strict anti-terror laws. Officials have repeatedly refused to comply with Ankara’s wishes that legitimate asylum seekers be returned to Turkey to face terrorism charges.
Sweden and Finland, which has a long border with Russia, remained outside of NATO for a long time but applied to join the alliance in May last year. By July, all NATO member states had signed the accession protocols and by September, all but Hungary and Turkey had ratified the protocols. Hungary has promised to ratify in early February, according to Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto.