AA / Ankara / Dilara Hamit
Following a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, the new Swedish Prime Minister announced that his government will abide by a trilateral memorandum on Sweden’s membership of the Treaty of the North Atlantic (NATO).
Ulf Kristersson said on Twitter that his conversation with Recep Tayyip Erdogan was constructive, adding that he looks forward to his future visit to Ankara.
“Successful telephone conversation with President Erdogan. I look forward to visiting Ankara soon. My government will fulfill the trilateral memorandum between Türkiye, Finland and Sweden for NATO membership,” said the Swedish Prime Minister.
Türkiye is following Sweden’s commitment to the agreement signed in June on the Nordic country’s candidacy for NATO, the Turkish president told Kristersson during the telephone interview.
Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO in June, a move prompted by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
However, Türkiye, a member of NATO for more than 70 years, has objected to these candidacies, accusing the two countries of tolerating, even supporting, terrorist groups.
The three countries signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding at the NATO summit in Madrid in June, which provides that Finland and Sweden will not provide support to the PKK/YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK terrorist group, or to the terrorist organization Feto, the group behind the failed July 2016 coup in Türkiye.
In its more than 35-year-old campaign of terrorism once morest Türkiye, the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the United States and the European Union, has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the Syrian branch of the PKK.
* Translated from English by Alex Sinhan Bogmis
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