June 26 () –
The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will meet on Tuesday in Madrid with the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, and with representatives of Sweden and Finland, whose entry into the Alliance is currently vetoed by Turkey for its support for the Kurdish separatists. .
“”On Tuesday in Madrid and at the request of the Secretary General of NATO, a meeting will take place between Turkey, NATO, Sweden and Finland with the participation of our president. This meeting will take place before the NATO summit,” Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in an interview on Turkish television Haberturk.
Kalin has clarified that participating in this meeting does not imply that they are capitulating. “We are negotiating. The negotiation has many phases,” he pointed out.
In addition, he has reminded Finland and Sweden that if they are changing a 200-year-old policy of neutrality, they must also be ready for other changes, “changes in the laws, in the Constitution.” “We want to see those same changes against the PKK and its affiliates, the YPG and the PYD and other similar structures,” she said, referring to the armed Kurdish organizations. “It is not more difficult than other paradigm shifts”, she has riveted.
Earlier, on Monday, a Turkish delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal will travel to Brussels to meet with representatives of Sweden and Finland.
Ankara considers that the Scandinavian countries grant favorable treatment to organizations such as the PKK, declared a terrorist group by their country. In addition, Finland and Norway have placed arms embargoes on Turkey.
Finland and Norway applied in May to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but entry requires the unanimous support of the 30-member military coalition.
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