Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday trained guns on Sweden and Finland once again regarding NATO membership and said Ankara continues to maintain its principle position.
Erdogan threatened that he may not ratify the NATO membership bids of the two Nordic nations until the promises given to Ankara were met.
“Until the promises made to our country are kept, we will maintain our principled position,” said Erdogan in the country’s parliament.
“We are closely following whether the promises made by Sweden and Finland are kept or not, and of course, the final decision will be up to our great parliament,” he added in the speech.
Erdogan continues to denounce Finland and Sweden for providing a safe haven to Kurdish ‘terrorists’. The Turkish leader is also cross with the Nordic countries for imposing an arms embargo on Ankara after Turkey’s intervention in the Syrian conflict in 2019.
However, in June, the three countries struck a deal where Turkey said it will seek extradition of 33 suspects from Finland and Sweden, in lieu of ratifying their NATO signing documents.
Read more: NATO bid: Turkey strikes deal with Finland, Sweden over Kurdish militants
However, Erdogan’s statement on Saturday suggests that both Sweden and Finland had failed to make do on their promises.
Both Nordic countries had sped up their process to join the nuclear-armed alliance after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, earlier this year.
As reported by WION, Sweden and Finland need NATO allies to sign the ratification to complete the formal joining process.
The accession will only be complete after all 30 NATO allies have signed the form. So far, 28 out of 30 countries have signed the document. Only Turkey and Hungary are yet to put pen to paper.
Read more: Joe Biden signs documents supporting Sweden and Finland’s bid to join NATO
Prior to the invasion, Putin had repeatedly warned that the expansion of NATO threatens Russia and contravenes assurances given to it as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
“We don’t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine. If Finland and Sweden wish to, they can join. That’s up to them. They can join whatever they want,” said Putin.
However, the Russian President warned that “if military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there, we would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us”.
(With inputs from agencies)
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