BRUSSELS, June 15. /TASS/. There is no guarantee that Sweden will join the North Atlantic Alliance at the bloc’s summit in Vilnius in July, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday.
"Sweden has delivered on the commitments Sweden made at the Summit in Madrid last year, which is to remove restrictions on arms exports, to strengthen the cooperation with Turkey in fighting terrorism, as Sweden has changed, amended its constitution and strengthened the anti-terrorist legislation," Stoltenberg pointed out upon arrival at the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. "It is possible to get Sweden in by the Vilnius Summit. I cannot guarantee you that that will happen," he added.
In response to a question about the June 12 meeting between Turkey, Sweden, Finland and NATO, he could only say that "the meeting took place in a constructive atmosphere."
However, Stoltenberg noted that Turkey "has some legitimate security concerns" because "no other NATO Ally has suffered more terrorist attacks."
Ankara demands Stockholm extradite a whole group of Kurdish activists who have been granted political asylum in Sweden but face terrorism charges in Turkey. The Swedish government argues that decisions on extradition can only be made in court. According to European sources, Ankara also demands the extradition of the former military personnel, including officers, who worked for NATO’s European bodies and were involved in a failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. They were granted asylum in Sweden - a neutral country at that time - in an attempt to prevent additional tensions within the alliance.