Türkiye may freeze the process of Sweden and Finland joining NATO if the two Nordic countries fail to meet its demands, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday at a press conference in the Ankara.
Erdogan was referring to conditions in a memorandum that both countries signed with Türkiye at last month’s NATO summit in Madrid.
“I would like to reiterate that if Sweden and Finland fail to take the necessary steps to meet our demands, we will freeze this process. Turkey has a very clear position, while everything else is their own business,” he said.
Earlier this month representatives from NATO’s 30 member states signed accession protocols for Finland and Sweden after formally inviting them to join the military alliance.
Spurred by Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the two countries applied to join NATO in May, shedding their traditional neutrality.
Türkiye raised objections to their membership bids, criticizing the countries for tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups such as the YPG/PKK and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind a defeated coup in Türkiye in 2016.