Sweden, Finland NATO accession talks with Turkey to resume in days
Turkey says talks with Sweden and Finland will soon resume on Sweden's and Finland's bids to join the NATO alliance.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that his government will resume talks with Sweden and Finland over their NATO accession bids on March 9.
The third round of talks will be in Brussels, Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara today, after a pause in dialogue. Last month Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned protests in Sweden, among them the burning of a Quran by right-wing politician and provocateur Rasmus Paludan.
“We have not seen satisfactory steps from Sweden on the implementation of the Madrid memorandum,” Cavusoglu said Monday, in reference to a June 2022 agreement between the three sides.
But the Turkish tone has softened on the issue since the Feb. 6 earthquake that devastated the southeast region of the country and left over 45,000 people dead. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg visited Ankara soon after, and the Nordic countries have dispatched aid and rescue efforts.
