US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Ankara: United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his first visit to Turkey has reiterated Washington strongly supports Sweden and Finland’s quick NATO accession.
The Nordic country’s attempt to join the military alliance has been blocked by Ankara which says that Stockholm in particular has harboured the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which it considers a terrorist group.
Finland and Sweden have already taken concrete steps to fulfil the commitments that they met under the trilateral memorandum of agreement that they signed,” Blinken was quoted as by Reuters as saying.
He added that the United States strongly supported their accession into the alliance “as quickly as possible.” He also reiterated that NATO’s Nordic expansion issue is not a bilateral one with Turkey.
But Blinken’s Turkish counterpart, Mevlut CavusogluCavusoglu said all parties in the alliance must convince Sweden in particular to take more action to address Ankara’s concerns and win its support for the bid. When asked if Ankara would approve their accession by a NATO summit set to take place in Lithuania in July, a gathering by which the Western countries are hoping the expansion can be completed, Cavusoglu said Stockholm needed to do more.
“Sweden made a law change, but we see that every kind of activity, including terrorism financing, recruitment and propaganda, is continuing in Sweden,” he said.
“If they take steps that convince our parliament and people, there could be a development in this direction,” he added. Sweden and Finland applied last year to join the trans-Atlantic defence pact after Russia invaded Ukraine, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey.
Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a tougher line against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, and another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
In January, Erdogan said he was open to ratifying only Helsinki’s application.
With inputs from agencies.
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