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

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

At a information conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Overseas Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken mentioned the U.S. has no cause to imagine Turkey’s concerns can't be addressed. His feedback came after Turkey’s prime diplomat stated Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” earlier than Ankara may help their membership.

“The USA absolutely supports Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I continue to be assured that each will soon be NATO members,” Blinken mentioned. “We stay up for with the ability to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto stated his country and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their considerations in latest days and said those discussions would proceed with a watch towards resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to those talks,” Haavisto said. “We predict that these issues will be solved that Turkey has been raising. We hope that some outcomes might be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written purposes to join NATO last week. The transfer represents one of many greatest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine and will rewrite Europe’s safety map.

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

Earlier Friday, Turkish Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given paperwork detailing Turkey’s considerations, like information on terror teams, throughout their go to to Turkey this week. He mentioned Ankara is awaiting specific solutions.

Cavusoglu said “an approach of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we are friends and allies’ would not be correct.” He insisted that “these international locations need to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s safety considerations but ... everyone additionally needs to grasp Turkey’s professional safety concerns.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, together with what it stated was “termination of political help for terrorism,” an “elimination of the source of terrorism financing,” and the “cessation of arms help” to the banned PKK and a Syrian Kurdish militia group affiliated with it.

The demands also called for the lifting of arms sanctions against Turkey and global cooperation in opposition to terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments got here at a news convention with the visiting international ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, both of whom expressed strong support for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

“There is no such thing as a doubt that we do want the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance as a way to make it stronger,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said.

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

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