Turkiye deals blow to Sweden's NATO plans

No positive view on bid when terrorists are protesting in Stockholm: Erdogan

Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan played down the expectations for his country's approval of Sweden's NATO membership ahead of the military alliance's summit next month in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Erdogan's words came ahead of a trilateral meeting by Turkiye, Sweden and Finland in the Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday to pave the way for Sweden's membership. Meanwhile, NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels from Thursday to Friday.

"Sweden's expectations don't mean we'll follow them," Erdogan said during a trip to Azerbaijan, Bloomberg and Turkish news media reported on Wednesday, referring to the hope by Stockholm, Washington and NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg for Sweden to become a member before the summit on July 11-12.

Turkiye cannot approach Sweden's NATO bid positively while "terrorists" were protesting in Stockholm, Erdogan was quoted as saying.

Hundreds of people, organized by groups close to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which was outlawed by Turkiye as "terrorists", protested in Stockholm on June 4 against Sweden's new anti-terror law that was passed to address Turkiye's opposition to Sweden joining NATO.

Sweden and Finland abandoned their longtime military non-alignment last year and applied to join NATO and vowed to join together.

While Finland joined NATO in April after Turkish Parliament ratified its membership, Sweden's membership was blocked by Turkiye and Hungary. A new membership must be agreed unanimously by all 31 NATO members.

Turkiye has accused Sweden of providing a "safe haven" for "terrorists" and has issued extradition requests.

Commenting on Erdogan's latest message, Stoltenberg said his meeting with Erdogan a couple of weeks ago addressed the issue of Swedish membership.

Work in progress

"Some progress has been made and we will continue to work for the ratification of Sweden as soon as possible," he told a news conference in Brussels on Wednesday, adding he is not in a position to give an exact timeline or guarantee.

Stoltenberg said he told Erdogan that Sweden has changed the constitution, strengthened the counter-terrorist laws and lifted restrictions on arms exports to Turkiye.

The Swedish government decided on Monday to extradite a Turkish citizen residing in Sweden and convicted in 2013 of drug crime in Turkiye, a move aimed at pleasing Ankara.

Oscar Stenstrom, Sweden's chief negotiator at the trilateral talks, said Wednesday's meeting was good, but discussions aimed at overcoming Turkiye's objections would continue, without giving an exact date.

Meanwhile, Jim Risch, top Republican on the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, threatened Hungary's delay in approving Sweden's NATO membership by saying he was blocking a $735 million arms sale to Hungary.

"Given promises that were made to me and others last year that this vote would be done, and the fact that it is now June and still not done, I decided that the sale of new US military equipment to Hungary will be on hold," Risch said in a statement.

NATO's reckless expansion since the 1990s has been seen by many as a trigger for the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In a tweet on Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry quoted President Vladimir Putin as saying: "We agreed that NATO would not be expanded. We came up with every option we could. Still no. Why?

"It is just because the country is too big; no one needs a country that big and with such great potential in Europe."

Stoltenberg on Wednesday dismissed the concern about NATO's expansion into Asia.

NATO is an alliance of North America and Europe and will remain so, he said.

"It is not an issue at all to make NATO a global organization with members from, for instance, Asia. No one has been in favor of that."

Agencies contributed to this story.