ANKARA, June 20. /TASS/: Turkey won’t greenlight Sweden and Finland’s bid to join NATO at the bloc’s Madrid summit set for late June, the head of the Ankara-based Foreign Policy Institute told TASS on Monday.
"Turkey cannot be expected to give the greenlight at the Madrid summit. Sooner or later, Sweden and Finland will join NATO. It is highly unlikely to happen this year and may require the alliance to hold another summit," Huseyin Bagci pointed out.
He emphasized that Turkey did not oppose the NATO accession of the two Nordic countries in principle but was first and foremost interested in getting written guarantees that would address concerns about their ties with terrorist organizations, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the FETO organization.
According to the expert, due to Turkey’s unwavering stance on Sweden and Finland, their NATO membership bid has become more complicated than it was when they had first announced their plans to join the bloc. "The time has come for closed-door diplomacy," he noted.
The Foreign Policy Institute director denied allegations that Ankara had cranked up pressure on the two Nordic countries in a bid to play into Russia’s hands and to also extract certain concessions from the United States, particularly in terms of weapons supplies.
On May 18, the Swedish and Finnish envoys to NATO submitted their countries’ applications to join the alliance to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said then that Ankara would not support Sweden and Finland joining NATO until the two countries determined their position on the said organizations deemed terrorist groups by Ankara.
