No progress on return of terror suspects from Finland, Sweden: FM Çavuşoğlu
Türkiye welcomes the new Swedish government’s commitment in the fight against terrorism, Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu said after a NATO meeting in Romania
NO PROGRESS has been seen on the return of terrorist suspects as part of a trilateral deal with Finland and Sweden for the Nordic countries’ NATO bid, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said yesterday.
Speaking after a NATO meeting in Romania, Çavuşoğlu said: “These two countries have taken some steps in regard to their commitments, we do not ignore these steps. However, there is no concrete progress on some issues, especially on the return of criminals and the freezing of assets of terrorist elements.”
On another note, he also said that Türkiye welcomes the new Swedish government’s commitment to the fight against terrorism.
The Turkish people and the parliament have to be convinced to approve Finland and Sweden’s NATO accession, he added.
Sweden and Finland have made significant strides in negotiations with Türkiye on the Nordic countries’ NATO membership, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Tobias Billstrom also said yesterday.
“We had a very good conversation yesterday between Sweden, Finland, and Türkiye and I felt after this meeting that there is progress. We are moving forward,” Billstrom told reporters as he arrived for the second day of the meeting in Bucharest.
Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said that they will start the implementation of the new terror law, which will
come into effect at the beginning of the year before summer.
“The implementation of the terror law, which will be introduced at the beginning of this year and prevents participation in terrorist organizations, will begin before summer. Sweden continues to comply with the agreement with Türkiye,” Kristersson said.
Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday met with the top diplomats of Finland and Sweden, which have applied for NATO membership, at a tripartite meeting on the sidelines of the gathering of the alliance in the Romanian capital Bucharest.
Çavuşoğlu met with Billström and Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto in Bucharest, where he was for the NATO foreign ministers meeting.
Making a statement on social media regarding the tripartite meeting, Çavuşoğlu stated that Türkiye conveyed its expectations within the framework of the memorandum of understanding signed during the NATO Summit held in Madrid in June.
“At the Türkiye-Sweden-Finland Trilateral Foreign Ministers Meeting, we evaluated the steps taken within the framework of the Tripartite Memorandum and emphasized our expectations,” he said, referring to a pact signed this June under which the Nordic countries work to address Türkiye’s security concerns.
Sweden is on track to meet Türkiye’s requirements for accepting it and Finland as new members of NATO, Billstrom also said earlier in the day.
“We are on a steady path to meet Türkiye’s conditions,” he said before the meeting with colleagues from NATO countries. He hoped talks with Türkiye and Finland later in the day would help speed the process along.
The foreign ministers of NATO candidates Finland and Sweden joined the talks. NATO is eager to add the two Nordic nations to the defensive forces lined up against Russia. Türkiye and Hungary are the holdouts on ratifying their applications. The 28 other member nations have already done so.
NATO foreign ministers took part in a two-day meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest starting on Tuesday. The ministers discussed the war in Ukraine, considered a threat to Euro-Atlantic peace and security.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg ahead of the meetings said Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to use winter as a weapon against Ukraine and that Russia might continue attacking the Ukrainian electricity grid and natural gas infrastructure.
Stoltenberg also said it is time to finalize the accession process of Finland and Sweden and welcome them as full-fledged NATO members.
“This will make them safer, NATO stronger and the Euro-Atlantic area more secure, he noted.
Kristersson recently said Ankara’s security concerns will be addressed under the June tripartite memorandum.
Sweden and Finland formally applied to join NATO in May, abandoning decades of military non-alignment, a decision spurred by Russia’s war against Ukraine. But Türkiye, a powerful NATO member for over 70 years, voiced objections to their membership bids, due to the two Nordic countries tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups.
Türkiye and the two NATO hopefuls signed a memorandum in June at the NATO Summit in Madrid to address Ankara’s legitimate security concerns, paving the way for the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. Finland and Sweden extend their full support to Türkiye countering threats to its national security, according to the memorandum. To that effect, Helsinki and Stockholm are not to provide support to the PKK terrorist group, its Syrian branch, the YPG, and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the group behind the defeated 2016 coup in Türkiye.
Turkish officials, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have warned that Türkiye will not give the nod to the membership of Sweden and Finland until the memorandum is implemented. Unanimous consent of all 30 existing allied countries is required for a country to join NATO.