Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has poured cold water on Sweden and Finland’s “historic” announcements that they will to apply to join Nato in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, as he insisted that Ankara would not approve their bids.
Sweden’s premier Magdalena Andersson followed Finland on Monday in saying that Stockholm would bring 200 years of neutrality to an end in seeking to join the western military alliance, with all but two of the Nordic nation’s eight parliamentary parties now backing the move.
Despite Vladimir Putin appearing to back down significantly on the issue by insisting Russia had “no problem” with the countries’ Nato bids, Iceland, Denmark, Norway and France all joined the UK in pledging to defend the two nations in the event of an attack prior to their accession – a “vulnerable” period which Ms Andersson suggested could last up to a year.
But Mr Erdogan struck an increasingly hostile tone on Monday, accusing the two countries of harbouring terrorists and attacking military sanctions imposed on Turkey after its heavily-criticised incursion into Syria in 2019, asking: “How can we trust them?”
Shortly after it emerged that the foreign ministers of Finland and Sweden would lead delegations to Ankara in a bid to smooth over objections, Mr Erdogan told them bluntly not to bother and made clear the strength of his opposition to their bids, which had surprised his Nato allies last week.
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“They are coming to Turkey on Monday,” he told a press conference. “Are they coming to convince us? Excuse me, but they should not tire themselves.”
Labelling Sweden a “hatchery” for terrorist organisations, and accusing Stockholm of having terrorists in its parliament, Mr Erdogan claimed that Nato would become “a place where representatives of terrorist organisations are concentrated” if the two countries join.
Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber said on Monday that Sweden and Finland had not granted approval for the repatriation of 33 people that Turkey had requested, including members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt.
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However, Nato and the United States said they were confident Turkey would not hold up membership of Finland and Sweden, with Reuters reporting diplomats as saying that Mr Erdogan would be under pressure to yield as Finland and Sweden would greatly strengthen Nato in the Baltic Sea.
After years of non-alignment stretching back to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in Sweden, and for more than half a century in Finland, both nations have developed strong and well-equipped militaries. Both are among 10 countries taking part in Nato exercises currently underway in Estonia, organised prior to Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which are named “Hedgehog” and billed as one of the alliance’s largest drills in the Baltics to date.
On Saturday, Mr Erdogan’s spokesperson said that Turkey had not shut the door to Sweden and Finland joining Nato, but wants negotiations and a clampdown on what it sees as terrorist activities.
One official involved in high-stakes negotiations in Berlin last weekend over the Nordic nations’ Nato bid earlier told The Independent that Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu had been “very tough” in demanding that Stockholm and Helsinki denounce the outlawed PKK and impose restrictions on arms to Kurdish militant groups in northeast Syria.
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Russia’s president, meanwhile, appeared to soften his stance on the move on Monday, insisting that Moscow “does not have a problem” with Finland and Sweden’s accession to Nato, as it sees “no immediate threat to Russia”.
Instead he warned that, if the alliance were to move more troops or military hardware onto the territory of its new members – steps Finland and Sweden have both already ruled out – then that would “certainly provoke a reaction”.
“What that [response] will be – we will see what threats are created for us,” Mr Putin said in Moscow, where he met with the leaders of Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for a summit of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation.
Additional reporting by agencies