New Swedish PM To Visit Turkey As Accession Process Continues

Speaking at the Nordic Council summit in Helsinki, Finland, Sweden's new PM Ulf Kristersson has confirmed that he will travel to the Turkish capital Ankara for talks with gov't officials as the accession process of his country and Finland to the NATO alliance continues. Kristersson also states that it is 'natural for Sweden and Finland to act jointly in the NATO process'.

• Finnish PM Sanna Marin states that, 'Sweden and Finland have agreed that we shouldn't make preconditions in connections with our NATO applications'. Says that it is, '...important that Hungary and Turkey approve our applications sooner rather than later'.
• The Turkish gov't has said crackdowns on Kurdish separatists in Sweden have not been effective enough to assuage Ankara's concerns about Swedish membership, with governing AKP spox Omer Celik stating on 31 Oct that, “These statements of Sweden are good, but not enough until they are implemented...We are waiting for it to come to life.”
• Potentially some hope in Ankara that the new centre-right Swedish gov't, supported by right-wing populist Sweden Democrats, could be more amenable to extraditing Kurdish dissidents.