ANKARA: President Tayyip Erdogan stated on Tuesday that Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkiye before the Turkish parliament will approve their applications to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the two Nordic nations applied to join NATO; however, their applications must be approved by all 30 Nato members. The applications have not yet been approved by Turkiye or Hungary.
According to Turkiye, Sweden in particular needs to take a stronger stand against what it calls “terrorists,” primarily Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
Erdogan said late on Sunday, referring to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in November, “We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it (approval of the Nato application) through the parliament anyway.” Kristersson and Erdogan held the conference in November.
Erdogan stated, “You have to hand over more than 100, approximately 130 of these terrorists to us first of all for this to pass the parliament.”
Finnish politicians interpreted Erdogan’s request as a vengeful response to the effigy of the Turkish leader that was strung up during what appeared to be a small protest in Stockholm last week.
Pekka Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister, stated to public broadcaster YLE, “This must have been a reaction, I believe, to the events of the past days.”
Haavisto stated that he was unaware of any brand-new official demands made by Ankara.
Turkiye postponed the Swedish speaker of pa’s planned trip to Ankara in response to the incident in Stockholm.