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Swedish, Finnish Delegations To Visit Turkey Today For Talks On NATO Bid

NATO

Ragip Soyglu at Middle East Eye tweets: "Sweden, Finland diplomatic delegations will arrive in Turkey this evening. They will meet senior Turkish officials [presidential spox & chief foreign policy advisor Ibrahim] Kalin and [Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat] Onal, and representatives from defense ministry and Intel to discuss NATO bid. Turkey to present files on PKK activities — Officials to Turkish media"

  • There seems to be an increasing acceptance in Helsinki and Stockholm that the accession process is likely to take longer than initially expected with Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto stating on 22 May that talks could "take several weeks".
  • Turkey pushing for the extradition of 33 Kurdish individuals from Sweden that it has labelled as terrorists and cut ties with a group, the YPG, that Ankara views as akin to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), labelled in Turkey, and the EU, as a terrorist organisation. Sweden so far is refusing to, and would risk a domestic backlash if it did so given the large 100k-strong Kurdish diaspora in Sweden.

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