US: Turkey’s NATO issues with Sweden, Finland will likely be mounted

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned Friday he’s assured Turkey’s objections to Finland and Sweden becoming a member of NATO might be overcome swiftly, presumably in time for a summit of alliance leaders at the end of subsequent month.

At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Overseas Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the U.S. has no reason to consider Turkey’s concerns cannot be addressed. His comments got here after Turkey’s high diplomat stated Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara could help their membership.

“The US fully supports Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I continue to be confident that both will quickly be NATO members,” Blinken said. “We look forward to having the ability to call Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto mentioned his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their concerns in current days and mentioned these discussions would continue with a watch toward resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to these talks,” Haavisto stated. “We expect that these issues may be solved that Turkey has been elevating. We hope that some results may very well be achieved earlier than the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written applications to affix NATO last week. The move represents one of the biggest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s war in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s safety map.

The international locations’ membership bids require help from all 30 current NATO nations, but Turkey, which commands the second-largest military in 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 Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu mentioned the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given documents detailing Turkey’s considerations, like information on terror groups, throughout their go to to Turkey this week. He said Ankara is awaiting particular answers.

Cavusoglu mentioned “an approach of ‘we’ll persuade Turkey in time anyway, we're mates and allies’ wouldn't be right.” He insisted that “these nations have to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we perceive Finland and Sweden’s security concerns but ... everybody additionally needs to know Turkey’s respectable security issues.”

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

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

Cavusoglu’s comments came at a information conference 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 so as to make it stronger,” Polish Overseas Minister Zbigniew Rau mentioned.

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

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Observe the AP’s protection of the conflict at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine