Turkish foreign minister meets NATO chief in Brussels ahead of talks with Sweden, Finland

By Omer Tugrul Cam

BRUSSELS (AA) — The Turkish foreign minister held talks in Brussels with NATO's top official on Thursday, ahead of the fifth meeting of a permanent joint mechanism between Türkiye, Finland, and Sweden.

Hakan Fidan and Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met at NATO headquarters, hours before the permanent joint mechanism meeting that is focusing on the progress made by Helsinki and Stockholm on counter-terrorism based on a three-way agreement signed in June last year.

The meeting will be hosted by Stoltenberg and attended by delegations from Finland, Sweden, and Türkiye, including the Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, Deputy Foreign Minister Burak Akcapar, and Akif Cagatay Kilic, the chief adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The meeting comes before the NATO leaders convene a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11-12.

Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership soon after Russia launched a war in Ukraine in February 2022.

Although Türkiye approved Finland's membership to NATO, it is waiting for Sweden to abide by a trilateral memorandum signed in June 2022 in Madrid to address Ankara's security concerns.

Sweden passed an anti-terror law in November, hoping that Ankara would approve Stockholm's bid to join NATO. The new law, effective as of June 1, allows authorities to prosecute individuals who support terrorist groups.