AA / Ankara
The President of the Republic of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that his country has achieved a great diplomatic victory in NATO, referring to the tripartite memorandum signed with Sweden and Finland.
The Turkish Head of State made statements to the press on Thursday, during the return flight to Türkiye following the summit of the leaders of the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), held in Madrid June 28-30.
Among the important points of the NATO summit in the Spanish capital were the membership applications of Sweden and Finland, while Ankara expressed very serious reservations regarding these candidacies.
Thus, following a long meeting held between the leaders of Türkiye, Sweden, Finland and the Secretary General of NATO on Tuesday evening, the parties reached an agreement and signed a memorandum which meets the expectations of ‘Ankara. This agreement has therefore made it possible to remove the obstacles to the accession to the Alliance of the two Nordic countries.
“It’s a great diplomatic victory for Türkiye,” Erdogan once once more assured.
He recalled that through this memorandum, Sweden and Finland have undertaken to extradite terrorists wanted by Türkiye.
“Sweden will extradite 73 terrorists, for the time being they have returned 3 or 4, but it is insufficient. Our ministries concerned will follow these files closely”, he indicated in particular.
“It is now in the hands of Sweden and Finland to do what is necessary. We now have a document which will allow us to react if they do not respect their commitments”, he underlined, highlighting the need to see the implementation of the agreement.
In this sense, he recalled that Sweden and Finland are still not members of NATO, since each State must ratify this decision within their parliament. “Until our parliament has ratified it, these two countries will not officially join the Alliance”, he insisted, thus drawing attention to the need for these two countries to “prove themselves” by implementing the agreement.
Thanks to the signed agreement, members and supporters of the PKK/YPG and FETO terrorist organizations will no longer be able to freely act once morest Türkiye in these countries, welcomed the Turkish President.
“In addition, with the new strategic concept adopted by NATO members, it was recognized for the first time that terrorist organizations threaten “the security of our security forces”, in addition to “our rights and territories”. , Erdogan explained.
On the other hand, within the framework of the bilateral discussions between the member countries of NATO, the Turkish Head of State made it known that “all the leaders have offered to mediate to meet the Greek Prime Minister”. “I told them I didn’t have time for that,” he said.
Erdogan announced a few weeks ago that Türkiye will not participate in discussions with Greece until the latter puts an end to its provocations in the Aegean Sea, and that it does not respect the demilitarized status of the islands in the Aegean Sea. .
* Translated from Turkish by Tuncay Çakmak
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