Turkey to hold Nato talks with Sweden next week
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Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said the talks would include the foreign ministers and intelligence advisers from Turkey, Sweden and Finland.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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BRUSSELS - Top diplomats from Turkey and Sweden will meet at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters next week on Thursday for talks on Stockholm’s bid to join the alliance, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said.
“The time is now to welcome Sweden as a full member of Nato,” he said at a news briefing on Wednesday.
Nato member states have been pushing Turkey to grant the green light to Sweden by the time a summit is held in Lithuania from July 11 to July 12.
But Ankara is still holding out after months of stalling Stockholm’s push to join the United States-led military alliance.
Mr Stoltenberg earlier this week said the talks would include the foreign ministers and intelligence advisers from Turkey, Sweden and Finland.
Sweden has been an “invitee” to join Nato since June 2022, but its membership bid, which must be ratified by all 31 member states, has been blocked by Turkey and Hungary.
Western officials have hoped Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would soften his position on the diplomatically charged issue after he secured a hard-fought re-election win last month.
Western allies and Stockholm have insisted that Sweden has met the terms of a deal agreed with Ankara last year.
That accord includes a commitment to crack down on opposition Kurdish movements, such as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK, blacklisted by Ankara, which considers them terrorist groups.
Turkey dropped objections to Sweden’s nordic neighbour Finland joining earlier in the year, and Helsinki became a Nato member in April. AFP
