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

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated Friday he’s confident Turkey’s objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO may be overcome swiftly, probably in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the end of next month.

At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish International Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken stated the U.S. has no cause to consider Turkey’s concerns cannot be addressed. His comments came after Turkey’s top diplomat stated Finland and Sweden must take “concrete steps” earlier than Ankara may assist their membership.

“The US absolutely helps Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I proceed to be confident that each will quickly be NATO members,” Blinken mentioned. “We look ahead to being able to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

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

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

Sweden and Finland submitted their written purposes to affix NATO last week. The move represents one of many largest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s battle in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s security map.

The nations’ membership bids require assist from all 30 present NATO international locations, but Turkey, which instructions the second-largest navy within the alliance, is objecting to them. It has cited alleged support for Kurdish militants whom Turkey considers terrorists and restrictions on weapons gross 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 solutions.

Cavusoglu mentioned “an strategy of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we are mates and allies’ would not be right.” He insisted that “these countries need to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s safety concerns but ... everybody additionally wants to grasp Turkey’s legitimate security issues.”

Turkey this week listed five “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, together with what it mentioned was “termination of political help for terrorism,” an “elimination of the source 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 referred to as for the lifting of arms sanctions towards Turkey and world cooperation in opposition to terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments came at a news conference with the visiting overseas ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, each of whom expressed strong 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 so as to make it stronger,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau mentioned.

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

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