Turkey’s Erdogan says will not approve Sweden, Finland joining NATO
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday he will not approve Sweden and Finland obtaining NATO membership, state news agency Anadolu reported.
The Swedish ministry of foreign affairs announced on Monday that senior representatives from Helsinki and Stockholm will travel “soon” to Turkey to Turkey to discuss Ankara’s objections to their NATO membership.
However, Erdogan said the diplomats should not bother coming to Turkey to try to convince Ankara to approve their NATO bids.
“First of all, we would not say ‘yes’ to those who impose sanctions on Turkey to join NATO, a security organization, during this process,” Erdogan said.
The two Nordic countries confirmed officially that they will seek NATO membership, ending decades of military nonalignment in an historic move driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey declared last week it had objections to the two countries joining NATO, accusing them of supporting Kurdish militants whom Ankara considers to be terrorists, and failing to extradite dozens of suspected “terrorists”.
