Turkey to approve only Finland’s NATO bid – Erdogan
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey may approve only Finland’s application for NATO membership.
In a prerecorded video of an event, Erdogan indicated that Turkey might sign off on only Finland.
Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO in May 2022 prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February but were met with huge rejection from Turkey.
In response to the recent protests in Stockholm in which the Quran was burned, in addition to another protest in which an effigy of the Turkish president was hung upside down, Akar said, “Ankara’s attitude to the issues will be very clear.”
Turkey has recently threatened not to support Sweden for NATO membership and accused it alongside Finland of failing to meet Turkey’s demands to fight “terrorism.”
In turn, Erdogan warned, in his first official response after a cabinet meeting, “Sweden could not expect Turkey’s support for its NATO membership.”
Erdogan said to a group of young people in the Turkish Bilecik province, that he told the Swedish Prime Minister, “You will extradite these terrorists [members of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)] if you really want to enter NATO.”