(Istanbul) Sweden and Finland on Friday reaffirmed their commitment to fight “terrorism”, Turkey said after a meeting in Finland between Turkish, Swedish and Finnish representatives on joining the EU. NATO of the two Nordic countries, blocked for the time being by Ankara.
Posted yesterday at 12:34 p.m.
“Finland and Sweden reiterated their commitment, recorded in the trilateral memorandum [signé fin juin, NDLR]to show full solidarity and cooperation with Turkey in the fight against all forms and manifestations of terrorism,” said the statement issued by the Office of the Spokesperson of the Turkish Presidency.
A new tripartite meeting is to be held “in the fall”, the Finnish Foreign Ministry said after the first meeting held on Friday near Helsinki.
Since mid-May, Turkey, a member of the Atlantic Alliance, has been blocking this process, accusing the two countries of protecting Kurdish fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), considered terrorists by Ankara.
At the end of June, however, the Turkish, Swedish and Finnish Foreign Ministers signed a memorandum opening the access of the two Nordic nations to NATO.
The next day Turkey made extradition requests to the two countries for 33 people, most of them considered “terrorists” by Ankara, before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan evoked in the process a “promise made by Sweden regarding the extradition of “73 terrorists”.
The memorandum signed at the end of June only indicates that “Finland and Sweden will respond to extradition requests” made by Ankara, without mentioning any figures.
“It was agreed to intensify cooperation at the technical level between the institutions concerned in order to achieve progress,” the Turkish presidency said on Friday.
“No new issues were raised during the negotiations,” said Jukka Salovaara, the head of the Finnish delegation.
“I think all parties feel that the discussions have deepened their understanding of a number of issues,” he told Finnish television Yle after the meeting.
Stockholm said for its part that the meeting had been an opportunity to discuss the formalities of the Madrid agreement and its implementation.
Last week, Ankara expressed impatience, urging Sweden to extradite “terrorists”.
“If they think they can make Turkey believe that they have kept their promises by extraditing common criminals, they are wrong,” said Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, after the announcement of a first extradition.
The latter concerned a man identified as Okan Kale, convicted in Turkey for credit card fraud.
To date, 23 NATO member states – out of thirty – have ratified the membership application of the two Nordic countries. Of the remaining seven countries — Spain, Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Turkey — only the latter expressed opposition.
Stockholm and Helsinki abandoned their traditional policy of staying out of military alliances by announcing their desire to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.