Turkey wants 'what we cannot give' to ratify its NATO bid, says Sweden PM Ulf Kristersson

Turkey has demands that Sweden "cannot and does not want to meet" the NATO hopeful nation's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, the Sweden PM stated during a defense think-tank conference on Sunday, January 8. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had iterated that Sweden and Finland needed to meet Ankara's security needs and have to undertake “concrete steps” to win Turkey’s approval for their NATO bid. Ankara blocked the two nordic nations' NATO bid since May in an attempt to get them to meet political demands, leading to a long-running diplomatic tussle.

'Coup plotters' should be extradited: Turkey

Stockholm, Helsinki, and Turkey signed a trilateral deal in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara's objections, and the two nations had initially agreed to fulfill all of Turkey's demands, including expediting the PKK-affiliated terrorists that Erdogan holds responsible for the 2016 coup. As Sweden's Supreme Court blocked the extradition of exiled 55-year-old Turkish journalist Bulent Kenes wanted in Ankara, the latter labelled the development as  “very negative,” and has since continued to delay Sweden and Finland’s membership in NATO.

Sweden’s Supreme Court said that there were “obstacles to extradition because it is a matter of so-called political crimes, i.e. crimes that are directed against the state and that are political in nature.” The Swedish premier, on Sunday, declared that it cannot meet all of Turkey's demands, and that the NATO member needs to reassess the decision. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu slammed Sweden blocking Kenes extradition, saying that Turkey’s request should be met as the three nations inked the memorandum.

The joint memorandum states that Finland and Sweden “will not provide support to the organisation described as FETO,” Turkey’s designation of Gulen’s network that it holds responsible for trying to topple Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Cavusoglu said “coup plotters” should be extradited.

"Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do," Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defence think-tank conference. "But they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them," he stressed.

"We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don't know when," he said, adding that "the decision is in Turkey's camp."

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had earlier stressed that it was important “to welcome Sweden and Finland as full fledged members of the alliance." Both Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding military nonalignment policies amid the invasion of Ukraine, and applied for membership in the alliance over security concerns, and fears that Russia might target them next. Turkey has been accusing the Nordic countries of ignoring threats from Kurdish militants and other groups that it considers as terrorists and accuses the two nations of supporting. The parliaments of Turkey and Hungary have yet to ratify the NATO bid of the two countries.