Finland’s ambassador to Turkey, Ari Mäki, did not comment to Helsingin Sanomat on Sunday evening about Erdoğan’s speech about Finland’s possible acceptance into NATO or what a “different message” might contain.
Turkish news agency of Anatolia according to the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gives the green light to Finland’s NATO membership. According to the news agency, “Turkey could accept Finland into NATO”.
“We can give a different message about Finland if necessary. Sweden will be shocked when we communicate differently from Finland. But Finland should not make the same mistake,” Erdoğan said on television, according to news agency Anadolu.
Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have not yet accepted Finland and Sweden as members of the military alliance NATO. Hungary has promised to ratify the membership in February.
So far, Turkey has frozen negotiations on the project because the Turks feel that Sweden has insulted the country.
Earlier in January Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that there has been no discussion about evaluating Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO memberships separately from others.
Ambassador of Finland to Turkey Ari Mäki did not comment on Sunday evening to Helsingin Sanomat about Erdoğan’s speeches about Finland’s possible acceptance into NATO or what a “different message” might contain.
Turkey has become heated in Sweden because, in a demonstration in Stockholm on January 21, a Danish far-right politician who opposes Islam Rasmus Paludan burned a Koran outside the Turkish embassy. Earlier, Kurdish activists hung a doll representing Erdoğan by its feet in front of the city hall in Stockholm.
After the incident, Turkey, among other things, recalled the speaker of the parliament Matti Vanhanen (center) and the Speaker of the Swedish Parliament by Andreas Norlén The trip to Turkey.
Accordingly, anti-Sweden demonstrations began to spread in Turkey. Demonstrators, for example, burned and trampled the Swedish flag in Istanbul.
On Monday this week, Erdoğan announced that Sweden should not expect support for its NATO membership.
“Those who allow such blasphemy in front of our embassy can no longer expect our support for their NATO membership,” Erdoğan said.
The line of Finland, Sweden and NATO has been that Finland and Sweden join the military alliance at the same time.
“We are still optimistic that both Finland’s and Sweden’s membership has been ratified before the Vilnius meeting”, the foreign minister Pekka Haavisto (vihr) said at a press conference in Tallinn on Wednesday.
Tuesday it was reported that the tripartite negotiations between Finland, Sweden and Turkey are on hold for the time being. Haavisto estimates that no ratifications can be expected before Turkey’s May elections.
On Tuesday evening, the Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf KristerssonMinister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billström and the Minister of Defense Paul Jonson held an extra NATO briefing.
Kristersson said that nothing is now as important for Sweden’s national security as Sweden becoming a member of NATO with Finland.
“I want us to take this seriously now. The situation is very serious,” he said.
On Sunday, Sweden’s NATO negotiator Oscar Stenström commented that the NATO negotiations between Turkey and Sweden “do not make sense right now”.
According to Stenström, the risk is that the atmosphere will tighten.
“We have agreed together with my Turkish colleague that it does not make sense to continue discussions or meet face to face, as it would probably lead to the situation escalating.”
Expectations Finland and Sweden’s NATO ratification is now set for the NATO meeting in Vilnius in July.
President Sauli Niinistö said this week that he had discussed the matter with the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg with by phone.
Niinistö said on Thursday Ylen in the A-Talk program that he stayed away from the NATO discussion, so as not to create the impression that Finland was “begging” for membership.
However, Niinistö made it clear that before the July NATO summit in Vilnius, progress must be made in ratification.
“If there is no movement, then we have to have a serious discussion man to man,” Niinistö said.
The news is updated.
#NATO #Erdoğan #Turkey #accept #Finland #NATO #Sweden #shocked #communicate #differently #Finland
