Turkish, Finnish presidents meet in Ankara

By Merve Aydogan

ANKARA (AA) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday welcomed his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto with an official ceremony at the presidential complex in the capital Ankara.

The leaders will hold one-on-one talks, to be followed by a joint news conference.

Erdogan and Niinisto will discuss all aspects of the Türkiye-Finland relations and potential steps aimed at enhancing the cooperation between the two countries, a Turkish presidency statement said.

They will also exchange views on "Finland’s NATO membership application in accordance with the Trilateral Memorandum signed on the margins of the NATO Madrid Summit, the Türkiye-EU relations and current regional and global issues," according to the statement.

Abandoning decades of military non-alignment, Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO last May.

However, Türkiye, a longstanding NATO member, asked the two Nordic states to take concrete action against terror groups like the PKK and FETO, which carry out propaganda, funding and recruitment activities in these countries.

In June, Finland, and Sweden signed a memorandum with Türkiye to address Ankara’s security concerns, and senior diplomats and officials from the three countries have held various meetings since then to discuss the implementation of the trilateral agreement.