Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made approval of Sweden’s and Finland’s NATO accession conditional on approaching his country on security issues. For Turkey, the NATO expansion goes hand in hand with the respect shown to its sensitivities, Erdogan said on Wednesday in a speech to his conservative Islamic ruling party, the AKP, in Ankara.
Sweden and Finland wanted to continue supporting “terrorist organizations”, but at the same time Turkey’s approval for NATO membership, Erdogan criticized. “That’s a contradiction, to say the least.”
Sweden accused Erdogan of refusing to extradite 30 “terrorists”. “NATO is a security association, a security organization. In this respect, we cannot say yes to making this security body unsafe,” said Erdogan.
