Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday he is not going to approve Sweden and Finland getting NATO membership.
The Swedish ministry of foreign affairs said on Monday that senior representatives from Helsinki and Stockholm are set to travel “soon” to Turkey to talk about Turkey’s objections to their NATO membership.
However, Erdogan said the diplomats don’t have to bother coming to Turkey to try to convince them about their NATO bids.
“First of all, we would not say ‘yes’ to those who impose sanctions on Turkey to join NATO, a security organization, during this process,” Erdogan said.
“Neither country has an open, clear stance against terrorist organizations,” Erdogan added, describing Sweden as an “incubation center for terrorist organizations.”
“They have special invitations to terrorists. They even have pro PKK MPs in their parliaments. How are we going to trust them?” Erdogan added, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which Turkey designates as a terrorist organization.
Finland and Norway have confirmed officially that they will seek NATO membership.
Turkey had made it clear last week that it had objections to the two countries joining NATO, accusing them of supporting Kurdish militants who are having a war with Turkey.
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