SLEN: Turkiye, which has for months blocked Nato membership bids by Sweden and Finland, has made some demands that Sweden cannot accept, Sweden’s prime minister said on Sunday.

“Turkiye has confirmed that we have done what we said we would do, but it also says that it wants things that we can’t, that we don’t want to, give it,” Ulf Kristersson said during a security conference also attended by Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg. “We are convinced that Turkiye will make a decision, we just don’t know when,” he said, adding that it will depend on internal politics inside Turkiye as well as “Sweden’s capacity to show its seriousness.” Sweden and Finland broke with decades of military non-alignment and applied to join the US-led defence alliance in response to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

But Turkiye has refused to approve their bid until the two countries take steps, including joining Turkiye’s fight against banned Kurdish militants. Most of Turkiye’s demands have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora. Finland’s foreign minister said that the country would join Nato at the same time as its neighbour.

“Finland is not in such a rush to join Nato that we can’t wait until Sweden gets the green light,” Pekka Haavisto, told reporters at Sunday’s conference.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2023