Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday confirmed Turkey’s opposition to NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, again accusing them of failing to take a clear stance against terrorism, France24 reports.
Turkey will not approve Sweden and Finland joining NATO, said Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday.
The Turkish President added that Swedish and Finnish delegations “should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid.”
In a news conference, Erdogan said Turkey would not approve their bids to join NATO, calling Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorist organizations, and adding they had terrorists in their parliament.
Ankara says Sweden and Finland harbor people it says are linked to groups it deems terrorists, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt.
Meanwhile, senior representatives of Sweden and Finland plan to travel to Turkey for talks to address Ankara’s objections to NATO membership for the two Nordic countries, the Swedish foreign office said.
The representatives would meet their Turkish counterparts in the capital, France24 quotes a foreign ministry spokesperson as saying.
