Erdogan said ‘Sweden will be surprised’… NATO statement from Ankara

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said at the joint press conference with Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Peter Szijjarto: “The third meeting of the permanent mechanism with Sweden and Finland will take place in Brussels on 9 of March”.

“There are NATO membership commitments. It is not possible for us to say yes to Sweden’s NATO membership without seeing these steps,” Çavuşoğlu said.

“Turkey’s opinion on the membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO is clear. We say that our concerns about terrorism must be met by the two candidate countries. In practice, Sweden did not take satisfactory measures.

Noting that Sweden and Finland can separate the membership process, Çavuşoğlu said: “It is not possible for us to pass this process unless Sweden fulfills its obligations.”

Turkey suspended NATO talks with Finland and Sweden after actions against President Erdoğan in Sweden and Danish far-right Rasmus Paludan burning the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on January 21.

In his statement, Erdogan said: “If necessary, we can give a different message about Finland. Sweden will be surprised when we give a different message about Finland. Did they end Islam by burning our Quran? They just showed how bad their cibility was,” he said.