Cyprus Mail 12 June 2022 - by Reuters News Service
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| NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg |
Security concerns raised by Turkey in its opposition to Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO membership applications are legitimate, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Sunday during a visit to Finland.
“These are legitimate concerns. This is about terrorism, it’s about weapons exports,” Stoltenberg told a joint news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto while visiting him at his summer residence in Naantali, Finland.
Sweden and Finland applied to join the Western defence alliance last month, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But they have faced opposition from Turkey, which has accused them of supporting and harbouring Kurdish militants and other groups it deems terrorists.
Stoltenberg said Turkey was a key ally for the alliance due to its strategic location on the Black Sea between Europe and the Middle East, and cited the support it has provided to Ukraine since Russia sent troops into its neighbour on Feb. 24. Moscow calls its actions a “special military operation”.
“We have to remember and understand that no NATO ally has suffered more terrorist attacks than Turkiye,” Stoltenberg said, using the Turkish pronunciation of the country’s name, as preferred by Turkey and its President Tayyip Erdogan.
Stoltenberg and Niinisto said talks with Turkey would continue but gave no indication of progress in the negotiations.
“The summit in Madrid was never a deadline,” Stoltenberg said, referring to a NATO meeting in Madrid at the end of June.
Sweden seeks to make constructive progress in talks with Turkey on Ankara’s objections to the Nordic country’s application to join the NATO defence alliance, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday.
Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO last month in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but face opposition from Turkey, which accuses them of supporting and harbouring Kurdish militants and other groups it deems terrorists.
The objections caught Finnish, Swedish and many NATO officials by surprise and have dimmed prospects for rapid progress on the membership bids ahead of a NATO summit in Madrid later this month. Read full story
“Our application has received broad support among NATO members,” Linde said in a foreign policy declaration in the Swedish parliament. “Our ambition is to, in a constructive spirit, make progress on the questions that Turkey has raised.”
Linde added that there should be no doubts that Sweden stood together with allies against terrorism.
“We take Turkey‘s security very seriously and we will as a NATO member contribute to security for all NATO members, Turkey included,” she told a news conference later in the day.
