No green light to Sweden's NATO membership from Erdoğan

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The fourth meeting of the Permanent Joint Mechanism where delegations of Turkey, Finland, Sweden, and NATO participated was held in Ankara yesterday (May 14). 

Following the meeting NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at a news conference in Brussels that according to his information, the meeting in Ankara "took place in a constructive atmosphere." Sweden's membership is "possible but not guaranteed until the Vilnius Summit," the Secretary-General said. 

Remarks also came from the President and Chairperson of the Justice and Development Party Recep Tayyip Erdoğan while the meeting of the Permanent Joint Mechanism was still continuing in Ankara. Erdoğan's remarks made on the plane on his return from Azerbaijan were quite different. 

Erdoğan: "We will not allow Sweden on July 11"

"We will not allow Sweden [to join NATO] on July 11," Erdoğan said on his return from the visits to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Azerbaycan following his re-election as the President.

"Where is the anti-terror leg of NATO?" he asked and said that NATO had to solve this problem. "If they do not solve this problem we cannot act in Vilnius as if they are our blue-eyed son, it is not possible," Erdoğan said. 

The next NATO summit will take place on July 11-12 in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. 

Recalling that he has met NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg in İstanbul recently, Erdoğan said, "What we told him was if you want us to fulfill the expectations of Sweden, Sweden has to wipe off the activities of this terrorist organization." 

They do not expect Sweden to enact laws, but their security forces to take action "against terrorists," he said.

Erdoğan suggested that the security forces of Sweden take actions similar to those the security forces of Turkey take in the Cudi and Gabar mountains, in Tendürek, and in Bestler.

The locations Erdoğan cited are ones where confrontation and armed conflict have taken place with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) members. 

Stoltenberg speaks in Brussels

Again yesterday, and at a news conference in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that it is still possible to reach an agreement with Turkey on Sweden's NATO accession before the leaders' summit in July 11-12.

His remarks came after the completion of the meeting in Ankara.

Stoltenberg said that according to his information, the meeting of the joint permanent mechanism in Ankara "took place in a constructive atmosphere."

"Some progress had been made, and we will continue to work" such that Sweden's NATO membership is ratified as soon as possible, he added.

He said that Sweden has fulfilled its commitments and stressed that following Turkey's request, Sweden "changed the Constitution, strengthened the counter-terrorism laws and lifted restrictions on arms export to Turkey."

He also welcomed the recent announcement on the extradition of a person affiliated with the PKK terrorist organization to Turkey.

NATO leaders will meet in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on July 11-12.

The meeting in Ankara

Yesterday's meeting was the fourth meeting of the Permanent Joint Mechanism between Finland, Sweden, Turkey, and NATO, which was established after the NATO bids of the two Nordic countries in 2022.

While Finland became the 31st member of NATO on April 4, after Turkey's parliament voted to approve its application, Sweden's NATO bid is still waiting for approval from Turkey.

Stian Jenssen, Director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General led the NATO delegation in yesterday's meeting in Ankara. Jan Knutsson, Cabinet Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs European Union was the leader of the delegation of Sweden and  Permanent State Secretary of Foreign Ministry, Jukka Salovaara was the leader of the delegation from Finland.

What happened?

Following the war that started with Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Finland, with 1340 kilometers of international border with Russia, and also Sweden applied for NATO membership.

Both countries handed in their official applications to join NATO in May 2022. 

Finland and Sweden held trilateral talks with the Turkish government that objected to their membership for reasons of "support to terrorism," and "security concerns."

The three countries signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding on June 28 at the NATO summit in Madrid, and Sweden and Finland tried to overcome the reservations of Turkey in the trilateral talks held.

In September, Sweden lifted restrictions on arms sales to Turkey, which was among Ankara's demands in order to approve the country's NATO bid.

The trilateral talks were interrupted by Turkey after the Quran-burning incidents in Sweden in late January. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said following these incidents that Sweden should not expect Turkey to approve its NATO bid.

The talks resumed on March 9.

The Foreign Affairs Commission of the Parliament of Turkey approved the bill that ratifies Finland's bid to join NATO in its meeting on March 23. The bill was approved in the General Assembly of the Parliament on March 30 and finally, Turkey ratified Finland's NATO membership with the law published in the Official Gazette on April 1.

Finland became a member of NATO on April 4, 2023. (AEK/PE)