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

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

At a information convention in Washington with visiting Finnish Overseas Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the U.S. has no reason to believe Turkey’s considerations cannot be addressed. His feedback got here after Turkey’s high diplomat said Finland and Sweden must take “concrete steps” earlier than Ankara could support their membership.

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

Haavisto said his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their issues in recent days and mentioned those discussions would continue with an eye fixed toward resolving them earlier than the NATO summit in Madrid on the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to those talks,” Haavisto stated. “We expect that these problems could be solved that Turkey has been raising. We hope that some results could be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written applications to join NATO last week. The transfer represents one of the greatest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s struggle in Ukraine and could rewrite Europe’s safety map.

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

Earlier Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given documents detailing Turkey’s considerations, like data on terror groups, throughout their visit to Turkey this week. He mentioned Ankara is awaiting particular answers.

Cavusoglu mentioned “an approach of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we are associates and allies’ wouldn't be appropriate.” He insisted that “these countries need to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we understand Finland and Sweden’s security concerns but ... everyone additionally needs to understand Turkey’s reputable security considerations.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, together with what it stated was “termination of political assist 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 calls for also known as for the lifting of arms sanctions in opposition to Turkey and global cooperation against terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s comments came at a news conference with the visiting overseas ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, both of whom expressed strong assist for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

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

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

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