UPDATE - Türkiye, Sweden, Finland meet in Ankara for NATO talks

UPDATES WITH MEETING ENDS, ADDS REMARKS BY TURKISH PRESIDENT

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) – The fourth meeting on a permanent joint mechanism between Türkiye, Finland, Sweden, and NATO was held in the Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday.

Akif Cagatay Kilic, the chief adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, chaired the one-day meeting at the presidential complex.

Stian Jenssen, director of the Private Office of the NATO secretary general; Jan Knutsson, Sweden’s state secretary for foreign affairs, and Jukka Salovaara, permanent state secretary for the Finnish Foreign Ministry, attended the talks.

The three-hour long meeting comes before the NATO leaders convene in 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 last June in Madrid to address Ankara's security concerns on terrorism.

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.

Several foreign ministers hope that Türkiye would approve Sweden's bid ahead of the NATO summit next month.

However, Erdogan made it clear that if Türkiye is expected to respond to Stockholm's expectations of accession to NATO, Sweden must also do its part on the terrorist group PKK ahead of the summit.