Stoltenberg discusses Nordics’ Nato accession with Erdogan

Brussels, Jun 15 (EFE).- Nato’s secretary-general on Wednesday discussed with Sweden and Finland’s accession to the military alliance, which Ankara opposes over security concerns.

In a post on his official Twitter account, Jens Stoltenberg said he had had a “constructive conversation with President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan ahead of the Nato summit” scheduled in Madrid on June 29.

“We discussed the importance of addressing Türkiye’s legitimate security concerns on the fight against terrorism and making progress in the Nato accession process for Finland and Sweden,” he added.

The two Nordic countries need the unanimous approval of Nato’s 30 members to join, but Turkey has said it will block their accession.

Finland and Sweden applied for Nato membership in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the process has been complicated by concerns from Ankara, which accuses Helsinki, and particularly Stockholm, of harboring Kurdish militants whom Ankara consider terrorists.

“President Erdogan stressed that there would be no progress on the issue until both of the countries took concrete steps meeting Türkiye’s rightful expectations and written commitments were made assuring that there would be a change of paradigm in anti-terror and defense industry cooperation,” the Turkish presidency said on Twitter.

Turkey, Finland and Sweden have already held talks to try to settle the matter. EFE

rja-jug/ta/ks