Erdogan: Turkey won't approve Sweden and Finland joining NATO

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey has said it will not approve Sweden and Finland joining it as NATO members, hours after Stockholm followed Helsinki in a historic Nordic security policy shift by formally confirming that it intended to apply for membership of the alliance, The Guardian reports.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said diplomatic delegations from the two countries, which have reversed decades of military non-alignment in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, should not even bother coming to Ankara to discuss the move.

“We will not say yes to those [countries] that apply sanctions to Turkey to join the security organisation NATO,” Erdogan said. “They say they will come to Turkey on Monday. Will they come to persuade us? Excuse us, but they shouldn’t bother.”

Ankara first raised objections to Finnish and Swedish membership on Friday, citing their history of hosting members of Kurdish militant groups and Sweden’s suspension of arms sales to Turkey since 2019 over Ankara’s military operation in Syria.