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Minister says Turkey didn’t get proposal for Finland, Sweden to join NATO separately

"Because we haven’t received such statements, it wouldn’t be completely appropriate to give a comment on whether we will assess them separately," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pointed out

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu

© Sean Gallup/Getty Images

ANKARA, January 26. /TASS/. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Thursday said his country hasn’t received any proposals for Finland and Sweden to join NATO separately.

"We haven’t received any proposals for dividing the [NATO] accession processes for Sweden and Finland. Because we haven’t received such statements, it wouldn’t be completely appropriate to give a comment on whether we will assess them separately," he said at a news conference in Ankara.

Earlier, Omer Celik, a spokesman for the Justice and Development Party chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that Finland would continue discussions with NATO about its membership bid separately from Sweden.

It was reported on Tuesday that talks among Ankara, Stockholm and Helsinki to discuss applications to join NATO from Sweden and Finland, which were scheduled for February, are now delayed indefinitely.

On January 21, Danish politician Rasmus Paludan who leads the anti-Islamic far-right extremist Hard Line party burned the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy during a protest rally. He criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and displayed a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad. On Monday, Erdogan said that Sweden should not expect any support from Ankara for its NATO membership bid following anti-Turkish rallies in Stockholm. Earlier, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Defense Minister Hulusi Akar made similar statements.

In May 2022, Helsinki and Stockholm submitted their applications to join the US-led military bloc but the process was blocked by Turkey who demanded that the two countries designate Kurdish organizations as terrorist groups and extradite to Ankara the people suspected of terrorism and being involved in the 2016 coup. Talks between Erdogan, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, then Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg took place in Madrid on June 28, 2022. As a result, a memorandum was signed making it possible for Sweden and Finland to join NATO.

Earlier, Ankara said that this memorandum was not final and the Turkish parliament might not approve it if the two countries do not fulfill their obligations to counter terrorist organizations.

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