Hakan Fidan, Turkish minister of foreign affairs, shakes hands with the minister of foreign affairs of Sweden, Tobias Billström, during a trilateral meeting in Brussels, Belgium. (NATO)
BELFAST — New talks between Sweden and Turkey, mediated by NATO, have not led to a crucial breakthrough required for the Scandinavian nation to join the alliance.
As part of trilateral discussions held with Finland today, hopes were high that a long-running dispute over Kurdish militant protests and Swedish counterterrorism laws could be finally resolved, triggering Turkey to call a parliamentary vote to ratify Sweden’s entry — the last significant barrier to Stockholm’s ascension.
Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, said after the meeting that “unsolved issues” remain, all but ending the prospect of NATO expanding to 32 members at the alliance’s Heads of State Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week. Stoltenberg will host a new meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Monday in another attempt to settle the dispute.
“The difference between Sweden and Turkey is that Sweden says that they have followed up sufficiently [on a trilateral memorandum] to be fully ratified and I agree with that position,” said Stoltenberg. “The time has come to finalize Swedish succession and to ratify the Swedish accession protocols.”
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He refused to specifically outline why Turkey continues to disagree with Sweden’s position, but Erdoğan has been critical of protests in Sweden held by Kurdish militant supporters. Stoltenberg condemned the protests, noting they have been designed to stop Sweden joining NATO and threaten to weaken the alliance.
“I understand what the President [Erdoğan] is asking for and we have met many, many times and we have discussed them [the outstanding issues] in detail and that’s exactly why we have been able to make progress,” he added. He also warned that additional delay to Sweden’s membership would be “welcomed by” Erdoğan’s enemies in the Kurdish PKK as well as Russian President Valdimir Putin.
Sweden has already made a number of concessions, including making constitutional changes to tighten counterterrorism laws and ending an embargo on arms exports to Turkey. Under a “permanent mechanism” framework Sweden and Turkey have opened up bilateral communications to discuss security issues and share intelligence.
Noting new progress made so far, Stoltenberg also referred to the case of Sweden sentencing a Kurdish man on Thursday for attempting to extort money in support of the PKK. The individual was also found guilty of a firearms offence, according to France 24.
Sweden’s entry to NATO brings with it huge strategic value and will allow the alliance to plan operations across the Arctic-Nordic-Baltic region “as one,” added Stoltenberg. Hungary, which is also holding out its official approval of the move, has said that it will support Sweden’s membership bid once Turkey has done so.
