New episode in the diplomatic showdown between Stockholm and Ankara over Sweden’s NATO accession. “Turkey also confirms that we have done what we promised, but they also say that they want things that we cannot and do not want to give them,” criticized Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, recalling his country’s accession process Atlantic Alliance during a Defense and Security Conference in the presence of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don’t know when,” he said, adding: “The decision is in Turkey’s camp.” At the end of December, Ankara took note of “positive measures” taken by Stockholm, but called for “other important steps” to overcome its objections to Sweden’s NATO membership, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at the time. These statements came days after the Swedish Supreme Court refused to extradite journalist Bülent Kenes at the request of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson made one of his first-ever foreign trips to Ankara in early November to try to overturn Turkey’s veto. Only the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments have not ratified Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to NATO. On the sidelines of Sunday’s conference, the head of Finnish diplomacy reiterated that his country would join the Atlantic Alliance at the same time as its neighbor. “Finland is not in such a hurry to join NATO that we can’t wait for Sweden to get the green light,” Pekka Haavisto told the press.