Turkey’s Nato veto

sir – President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using Turkey’s power of veto to block the admission to Nato of both Sweden and Finland (report, May 18). Notwithstanding the provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty, this must be overruled.

Turkey is, of course, not a Western nation: its culture, religion and politics are different and, although nominally a democracy, it is ruled like a dictatorship with the associated human rights abuses. It also has a history of extreme policies ranging from the genocide of Armenians in the Second World War to the invasion and illegal occupation of Cyprus in 1974.

As a Nato member, it has provoked incidents in the Aegean Sea that have almost resulted in military action with Greece. More recently Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system was hardly the action of a trustworthy ally.

Given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the time is right for Finland and Sweden to join Nato. Perhaps it is also time for Turkey to leave it.

Group Captain Michael Clegg RAF (retd)

Market Drayton, Shropshire