Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, (third from the left), shakes hands with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, (R) after signing a memorandum in which Turkey agrees to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Centre), Finnish President Sauli Niinisto (second from the right) and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (L) look on.
SPAIN: Turkey agreed Tuesday to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, a breakthrough in an impasse clouding a leaders’ summit in Madrid amid Europe’s worst security crisis in decades triggered by the war in Ukraine.
After urgent top-level talks, alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said “we now have an agreement that paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO,” calling it “a historic decision.”
Under NATO treaties, an attack on any single member would be considered an attack against all and trigger a military response by the entire alliance.
But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had blocked the move, insisting the Nordic pair change their stance on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.
After weeks of diplomacy and hours of talks on Tuesday, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said the three countries’ leaders had signed a joint agreement to break the logjam.
Turkey said it had “got what it wanted” including “full cooperation ... in the fight against” the rebel groups.
Turkey hailed Tuesday’s agreement as a triumph, saying the Nordic nations had agreed to crack down on groups that Ankara deems national security threats, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and its Syrian extension. It said they also agreed “not to impose embargo restrictions in the field of defense industry” on Turkey and to take “concrete steps on the extradition of terrorist criminals.”
Turkey has demanded that Finland and Sweden extradite wanted individuals and lift arms restrictions imposed after Turkey’s 2019 military incursion into northeast Syria.- JAPAN TODAY
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