Turkey Rejects Trilateral NATO Talks With Sweden And Finland

Turkish President Recep Erdogan has torpedoed NATO plans to confirm Finland and Sweden as alliance members by the Madrid NATO summit next month.

• Erdogan told the Turkish parliament today: “We will certainly not change our stance on the NATO issue until Sweden and Finland take clear, concrete and decisive steps in the fight against terrorism.”
• Erdogan continued: “While terrorist organizations are roaming the streets of Sweden and Finland, will we open our doors to them or stand with them?”
• Bloomberg has reported that a trilateral meeting scheduled to take place today between delegations from Sweden, Finland, and Turkey was cancelled because "Turkey deemed the countries’ commitments to be insufficient."
• NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg conceded that the process “will take some more time than we originally expected.”
• It should be noted that Greece delayed the NATO bid of North Macedonia by a decade until the Balkan state agreed to a name change.