Sweden makes progress in NATO bid talks: Chief negotiator

ANKARA

The Swedish chief negotiator leading the NATO bid talks between Türkiye and Finland has said his country has made progress in NATO talks and that only some small steps will be needed for attaining full membership.

“We exchanged a series of ideas with the police and their colleagues in Türkiye to speed up the fight against the terrorist threat to Türkiye from the PKK,” Oscar Stenström told local radio after Turkish, Swedish and Finnish delegations met in Stockholm on Nov. 25.

It was the second meeting of the Permanent Joint Mechanism established by the three states under the trilateral agreement they signed in late June. The agreement paved the way for the two Scandinavian countries to launch the membership process to the alliance on the condition that they intensify anti-terror cooperation with Türkiye and extradite terrorists.

A joint statement issued by the three countries after the meeting stated that Türkiye had accepted that “NATO candidates had taken steps that fulfilled their commitments.”

“We had a very good tone, and for the first time in a joint statement, we signaled that progress was being made,” Stenström said.

Stenström said that Sweden has “one more small step towards the full membership” and that “the fulfilled requirements will also be applied to Sweden’s terrorism legislation.”

Sweden has recently amended its anti-terror law with promises that it will strengthen the hands of law enforcement against terror organizations. The law will take force on Jan. 1. Ankara acknowledges that there are some positive steps from Sweden and Finland, but it plans to see the implementation of the new law in Sweden in the first quarter of 2023.

The parties agreed to continue their work for the implementation of the agreement.

The Turkish delegation was headed by Turkish Presidential Spokesperson Ambassador İbrahim Kalın and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Sedat Önal and was joined by representatives from the Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Interior and Defense as well as the National Intelligence Organization.

The Swedish delegation was headed by Ambassador in the Prime Minister’s Office Oscar Stenström and State Secretary Jan Knutsson at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The Finnish delegation was headed by Permanent State Secretary at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs Jukka Salovaara and Dr. Petri Hakkarainen, Director of Foreign and Security Policy in the Office of the President of the Republic of Finland.

Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson once again reiterated in a statement to the country’s press that “they would fulfill the commitments they made to Türkiye.”

Evaluating the memorandum signed at the NATO summit in Madrid, Kristersson said, “This is an agreement that Finland and Sweden promised Türkiye on security. We will fulfill the commitments we promised.”

The two Nordic nations earlier this year ditched their longstanding policies of non-alignment, asking to join NATO because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how it reshuffled Europe’s security.

In June, Türkiye, Sweden and Finland struck a deal that included provisions for the extradition of terrorists and sharing of information.

Sweden and Finland had taken some steps to address Türkiye’s concerns but Ankara said more concrete actions are needed for the Turkish Parliament’s ratification of their accession to the alliance. Out of 30 allied nations, only Türkiye and Hungary have not pledged parliamentary approval to Sweden and Finland.