Turkey thwarts Sweden’s Nato hopes after Koran burning

TURKEY yesterday postponed Nato accession talks with Sweden and Finland, dealing a blow to their hopes of joining the Western defence alliance.

Ankara announced its decision one day after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, criticised Sweden for allowing weekend protests that included the burning of the Koran outside Ankara’s Stockholm embassy.

A Turkish diplomatic source said the tri-party meeting had been pushed back from February to a “later date”, without providing further details.

Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister, said his country urgently wanted to restore dialogue with Turkey. “No other national security question is more important than that we, together with Finland, quickly become members of Nato,” he said.

Earlier yesterday, Finland said for the first time that it had to consider joining without Sweden, whose bid appears to have ground to a halt after Ankara responded to anti-turkey protests.

Applications to join Nato must be ratified by all members of the alliance, of which Turkey is one.

Pekka Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister, told broadcaster Yle: “We have to assess the situation, whether something has happened that in the longer term would prevent Sweden from going ahead.”

He added that it was “too early to take a position on that now” and that a joint application still remains the “first option”.