The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday signalled that no real progress had been made in Sweden’s bid to join NATO, calling on Stockholm to take ‘concrete actions’ to meet Ankara’s concerns, according to a statement made public by his office.
In a telephone conversation with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, Erdogan maintained that ‘Sweden should take steps regarding such fundamental matters as combatting terrorism’, the Turkish presidency disclosed in a statement on Sunday.
Turkey ‘wanted to see binding commitments on these issues together with concrete and clear action,’ he added.
Africa Today News, New York earlier reported that Finland and Sweden discussed their stalled NATO bids during their meeting with Turkey in Brussels on Monday, however, Ankara has now dampened hopes that their misunderstandings will be resolved before an alliance summit next week.
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Turkish officials have however pointed out that Ankara does not view the summit as a final deadline for resolving Ankara’s objections.
Ankara has accused Finland and in particular Sweden of providing a safe haven for outlawed Kurdish militants whose decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Erdogan told Andersson that Sweden ‘should make concrete changes in its attitude’ toward the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its Syrian affiliates, the presidency said.
‘In this regard no tangible action aimed at addressing Turkey’s concerns was seen to have been taken by Sweden’, it added.
The Turkish leader used the opportunity to also voice expectations that Sweden would lift an arms embargo against Turkey that Stockholm imposed in 2019 over Ankara’s military offensive in Syria.
He also said he hopes that restrictions on Turkey’s defence industry would be lifted, and that Sweden will extradite several people Ankara has accused of involvement in terrorism.
Africa Today News, New York reports that the phone call comes after Erdogan discussed the two countries’ bid with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.