The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, yesterday held a bilateral meeting with the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he congratulated, among other things, for his role in the process of Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO. Shortly after the meeting, the Turkish president warned at a press conference that Ankara’s support for the two Nordic countries is “only the beginning” and that his country could backtrack “if promises are not kept”.
According to Moncloa in a press release, the head of the Spanish Executive “greeted before Erdogan the advances for the accession to the Atlantic Alliance of Sweden and Finland, two consolidated democracies whose candidacies have the support of Spain”.
He also highlighted Turkey’s role as a “key actor and partner in security and mediation” and congratulated Ankara for “the diplomatic efforts deployed” to promote dialogue and the end of Russian aggression in Ukraine, while thanking Erdogan for his support “for strengthening the Southern Flank, the 360 degrees concept and the fight against terrorism”. Sanchez also pledged to favor the positive agenda of the European Union with Turkey and recalled – in relation to the diplomatic problems between Turks and Greeks – “the importance of dialogue in the Eastern Mediterranean”.
Last Tuesday, Erdogan reached an agreement with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Saulio Niinisto -after a long meeting in Madrid in which NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg participated, as mediator – to remove Turkey’s veto on the accession of these two countries to the Alliance, related to their refusal to extradite Kurdish militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
With this agreement, Finland and Sweden will be able to definitively abandon their traditional neutrality to become the 31st and 32nd partners of the Alliance, whose accession requires the unanimous support of all 30 member states. The NATO Summit in Madrid formally invited the two countries to join the organization, and next Tuesday in Brussels, the member states will sign the protocol of accession of Sweden and Finland, after which it will be up to each of the 30 states to ratify the accession individually.
However, Erdogan himself warned yesterday at the post-summit press conference that the memorandum signed with the two Nordic countries is “only the beginning” and that his country could still backtrack on its decision “if the promises, what is in the agreement, are not kept.” “We expect clear solidarity from our allies, not only in words but also in deeds,” he stated. Among the commitments included in the memorandum, he assured, is the extradition by Sweden of “73 terrorists” to Turkey. Erdogan also met Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden, who thanked him for “allowing Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession process to move forward.”
