Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted that Sweden must extradite suspected terrorists in order for Ankara to vote in favor of the Nordic country’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance and has summoned Swedish authorities to a new meeting in December where he hopes to see «positive signals» in this regard.
«We want to see several positive signals at the next meeting,» Erdogan said at the end of a meeting in Ankara with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, where he also insisted that his «sincere wish» is for Stockholm to achieve NATO membership.
«Sweden wants to be a NATO member for its own security, and we want to see a Sweden that supports our own security concerns,» Erdogan said, referring to the extradition from Stockholm of suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists, Turkish news agency Anatolia reported.
Kirstersson, for his part, described the meeting as «productive» and promised that Sweden will fulfill all the commitments made with Turkey in the run-up to the NATO Summit in Madrid at the end of June, where it accepted the extradition of these alleged terrorists as a bargaining chip to join, together with Finland, the Atlantic bloc.
Likewise, the Swedish Prime Minister has guaranteed that, despite the recent change of government in the Nordic country, Stockholm’s commitment remains intact and it will try to comply with Ankara’s demands, according to Swedish radio and television SVT.
«In our discussions, the aim has been to review Sweden’s attitude towards terrorism. Four people have been extradited so far, but at the moment one person remains in Sweden,» Erdogan said, referring to an alleged terrorist who is still on the European country’s territory.
Ankara has alluded to the alleged collusion of Sweden and Finland with the PKK, as well as with the Kurdish-Syrian militia YPG, as the main argument for blocking the accession of both Scandinavian nations to the Atlantic Alliance.
After decades of neutrality, Finland and Sweden applied to join the Western alliance in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February. However, ratification requires unanimous approval and Turkey has not yet endorsed it.
