US: Turkey’s NATO points with Sweden, Finland might be fastened

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 can be overcome swiftly, presumably in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the finish of subsequent month.

At a information conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken stated the U.S. has no reason to believe Turkey’s concerns can't be addressed. His comments came after Turkey’s high diplomat mentioned Finland and Sweden must take “concrete steps” before Ankara may support their membership.

“The United States totally supports Finland and Sweden joining the alliance and I continue to be assured that both will soon be NATO members,” Blinken stated. “We look forward to having the ability to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

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

“We agreed to continue to these talks,” Haavisto stated. “We expect that these issues can be solved that Turkey has been elevating. We hope that some results could possibly be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written applications to affix NATO final week. The transfer represents one of many greatest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s security map.

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

Earlier Friday, Turkish Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu mentioned the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given documents detailing Turkey’s issues, like information on terror groups, during their go to to Turkey this week. He stated Ankara is awaiting particular answers.

Cavusoglu said “an approach of ‘we’ll persuade Turkey in time anyway, we are associates and allies’ wouldn't be right.” He insisted that “these nations must take concrete steps.”

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

Turkey this week listed five “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, including what it stated 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 global cooperation against terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments got here at a news conference with the visiting overseas ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, each of whom expressed robust 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 in order to make it stronger,” Polish International Minister Zbigniew Rau said.

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

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