Turkey’s president says no to Sweden and Finland’s Nato bid
19 May 2022, 12:34
Turkey’s approval is crucial because the military alliance makes its decisions by consensus.
Turkey’s president has flatly stated that his country will oppose Sweden and Finland joining Nato.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a group of Turkish youth in a video released on Thursday: “We have told our relevant friends we would say ‘no’ to Finland and Sweden’s entry into Nato, and we will continue on our path like this.”
Turkey’s approval of Finland and Sweden’s application to join the western military alliance is crucial because Nato makes decisions by consensus.
Each of its 30 member countries has the power to veto a membership bid.
Mr Erdogan has said Turkey’s objection stems from grievances with Sweden’s – and to a lesser degree with Finland’s – perceived support of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and an armed group in Syria that Turkey sees as an extension of the PKK.
The conflict with the PKK has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.
Turkey also accuses Sweden and Finland of harbouring the followers of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim cleric whom the Turkish government blames for a 2016 military coup attempt.
A full recording of Mr Erdogan’s conversation with the youth for the Commemoration of Ataturk, Youth and Sports Day, a national holiday that marks the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence in 1919, is expected to be released on Thursday night.
It was not immediately clear when the conversation took place.
In the remarks made available earlier on Thursday, Mr Erdogan accused the two prospective Nato members and especially Sweden of being “a focus of terror, home to terror”.
He claimed their links to terror organisations meant they should not be part of the transatlantic alliance.
Turkish officials, including the president, have also pointed to arms restrictions on Turkey as a reason for Ankara’s opposition to the two countries becoming part of Nato.
Several European countries, including Sweden and Finland, restricted arms exports to Turkey following the country’s cross-border operation into north-east Syria in 2019 with the stated goal of clearing the border area of Kurdish militants.
