US: Turkey’s NATO points with Sweden, Finland can be fixed

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated Friday he’s assured Turkey’s objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO will be overcome swiftly, probably in time for a summit of alliance leaders on the end of next month.

At a news convention in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the U.S. has no purpose to believe Turkey’s considerations can't be addressed. His feedback came after Turkey’s top diplomat said Finland and Sweden would have to take “concrete steps” before Ankara could support their membership.

“The US fully helps Finland and Sweden becoming a member of the alliance and I proceed to be assured that both will quickly be NATO members,” Blinken said. “We stay up for with the ability to name Finland and Sweden our allies.”

Haavisto mentioned his nation and Sweden had held “good negotiations” with the Turks over their issues in current days and said those discussions would proceed with an eye fixed toward resolving them before the NATO summit in Madrid on the end of June.

“We agreed to proceed to those talks,” Haavisto said. “We predict that these issues can be solved that Turkey has been elevating. We hope that some outcomes could be achieved before the NATO summit.”

Sweden and Finland submitted their written purposes to affix NATO final week. The move represents one of the greatest geopolitical ramifications of Russia’s war in Ukraine and will rewrite Europe’s security map.

The international locations’ membership bids require support from all 30 current NATO international locations, however Turkey, which commands the second-largest army in the alliance, is objecting to them. It has cited alleged assist for Kurdish militants whom Turkey considers terrorists and restrictions on weapons gross sales to Turkey.

Earlier Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the Finnish and Swedish negotiating delegations had been given documents detailing Turkey’s considerations, like data on terror teams, throughout their visit to Turkey this week. He said Ankara is awaiting particular solutions.

Cavusoglu said “an strategy of ‘we’ll convince Turkey in time anyway, we're pals and allies’ would not be appropriate.” He insisted that “these nations have to take concrete steps.”

He added that “we understand Finland and Sweden’s safety considerations however ... everybody additionally needs to grasp Turkey’s professional safety considerations.”

Turkey this week listed 5 “concrete assurances” it was demanding from Sweden, together with what it mentioned was “termination of political assist for terrorism,” an “elimination of the supply of terrorism financing,” and the “cessation of arms support” to the banned PKK and a Syrian Kurdish militia group affiliated with it.

The calls for also called for the lifting of arms sanctions towards Turkey and world cooperation against terrorism.

Cavusoglu’s feedback came at a news conference with the visiting international ministers of NATO allies Poland and Romania, each of whom expressed sturdy assist for Finland and Sweden’s bids.

“There isn't any doubt that we do need the accession of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance with the intention to make it stronger,” Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau mentioned.

Romanian International Minister Bogdan Aurescu, agreed, saying their membership would “consolidate the collective protection and our security.”

___

Observe the AP’s coverage of the warfare at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine