Türkiye, Sweden, Finland to meet for NATO talks, cooperation
Türkiye, Sweden and Finland will meet on Friday to hold the first trilateral talks meant to pave the way for the two Nordic nations to join NATO and discuss how to cooperate on the deal that was reached on the sidelines of the Madrid summit.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde on broadcaster SVT on Wednesday also confirmed the meeting to be held in Finland.
"The issue is how we should follow up on the agreement that Türkiye, Sweden and Finland reached during the NATO summit in Madrid, which was a precondition for Türkiye to agree to Sweden's and Finland's requests," Linde said.
The two incoming Nordic members have pledged to support Türkiye against national security threats, among other commitments. Deportations are also to be made easier.
A deal Sweden and fellow NATO aspirant Finland signed with Türkiye in June commits them to "expeditiously and thoroughly" examine Ankara's requests for suspects linked to the 2016 coup attempt and the PKK terrorists.
The Swedish government said earlier this month that it would extradite Okan Kale – a man convicted of credit card fraud who appeared on a list of people sought by Ankara published by Turkish media, Qazet.az reports.
However, Ankara has voiced that it does not expect fraud suspects but terrorism.
According to Anadolu Agency (AA), Sweden refused to extradite PKK members Mehmet Sıraç Bilgin, Aziz Turan, Ragıp Zarakolu and Halef Tak, granting citizenship to all four. Stockholm did not respond to the requests from Ankara for the extradition of Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) members Harun Tokak and Bülent Kenes, either.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in July that Sweden had made a "promise" to extradite "73 terrorists."
The Justice Ministry in June formally requested the extradition of 21 suspects from Sweden and 12 from Finland.
A Turkish official told Daily Sabah that one of Türkiye’s main expectations from the talks is the deportation of terrorist suspects ranking first. “But they act as if there is nothing they could give us,” the official said.
He said that Türkiye has no deadline to receive the terrorist suspects, however, Parliament may block the legislation to let the Nordic countries enter NATO in this scenario.
They have no road map or deadline for extraditions, the official said.