BUCHAREST, November 30. /TASS/. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom could not confirm after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu that his country would complete its bid to join NATO in 2023, but said there was progress on this score.
"We had a very good bilateral [meeting] yesterday between Sweden, Finland and Turkey and I felt after this meeting that there is progress. We are moving forward," the top diplomat said ahead of the second day of the Bucharest-hosted NATO Foreign Ministers meeting, pointing out that he did not want to set a specific date for accession. Billstrom recalled that in order for Sweden to become a NATO member, it should fulfill its obligations under the trilateral memorandum (with Finland and Turkey - TASS), and the Turkish parliament must ratify the accession protocol.
The Swedish top diplomat also said that he had been planning a trip to Ankara to meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that only two of the 30 NATO member countries, Hungary and Turkey, had not ratified the protocol on Sweden and Finland’s accession.
Ankara demanded in exchange for ratifying the Swedish-Finnish entry bid to the bloc that the Nordic countries extradite Kurdish activists linked to terrorist activities against Turkey, as well as persons involved in the attempted military coup in Turkey in 2016, including former Turkish military officers who previously worked in NATO’s international structures, and then received political asylum in Finland and Sweden. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier said, Stockholm had promised to extradite "more than 70 individuals involved in terrorist activities." Ankara also demanded to ban organizations with connections to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which it deems a terrorist structure. Turkey also demanded the lifting of all export restrictions on military equipment imposed in 2019.
On May 18, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership, however, their entry bid was immediately stonewalled by Ankara who demanded that the Nordic countries declare Kurdish organizations to be terrorist ones, extradite persons to Turkey, who are accused of terrorist activity or aiding and abetting the 2016 coup d’etat attempt, along with removing bans on arms supplies to Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andresson, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 28, ahead of the Madrid-hosted NATO summit. The talks yielded a memorandum on Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO, which is to be ratified by all the bloc’s member states.