Turkey and Hungary are the only members of the 30-nation alliance yet to have agreed to the Nordic nations’ bid.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled that Ankara could admit Finland to NATO before taking any action against its Nordic neighbor Sweden’s membership.
Erdogan spoke just days after Ankara suspended NATO accession talks with the two countries following a protest in Stockholm where a far-right politician burned a copy of the Koran.
“Perhaps we are bringing a different message to Finland [on their NATO application] and Swedes would be shocked to see our message. But Finland should not make the same mistake that Sweden made,” Erdogan said in a televised address aired on Sunday.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, abandoning their longstanding military non-alignment.
Every member of the 30-nation alliance has to approve their membership, and Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have done so yet. The Hungarian parliament is expected to approve the bids in February.
Erdogan’s main complaint concerns Sweden’s refusal to extradite dozens of people Ankara has linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and a failed 2016 coup attempt.
Facing an election in May, he has been harping on about Sweden’s NATO membership while trying to bolster his conservative and nationalist supporters.
On Sunday, Erdogan repeated his demand that Sweden extradite around 120 alleged suspects.
“If you absolutely want to join NATO, you will give us these terrorists back,” Erdogan said.
“You will send these terrorists to us so that you can join NATO.”
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has said his country wants to resume NATO dialogue with Turkey.
Late on Saturday, Turkey’s foreign ministry issued a travel warning for European countries over anti-Turkish demonstrations and what it described as Islamophobia.
The warning cites an increase in anti-Turkish protests by “groups linked to terrorist groups,” a reference to the PKK taking up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.
Pro-Kurdish groups have waved the flags of the PKK and its affiliates during protests in Sweden organized in response to Sweden and Finland’s pledges to prevent PKK activities in their countries in order to gain Turkey’s approval for its NATO entry.
As part of that memorandum, Erdogan said Turkey had submitted a list of 120 people to be extradited from Sweden.