Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said that Ankara did not provide Helsinki with a new list of persons to be handed over to Turkey.
Haavisto added: “I am not aware of any new Turkish lists of individuals that we have to hand over to Ankara.”
This came in response to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statement on Sunday that Finland and Sweden must hand over 130 “terrorists” involved in the “PKK war” to Turkey in order for Ankara to agree to its entry into NATO.
Haavisto explained to the Polish newspaper Helsingin sanomat that Erdogan’s statements were a response to a rally held by PKK supporters in Stockholm on January 11, during which they made a number of insulting statements and gestures against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He added that he would continue Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s visit to Washington this week to discuss Washington’s sale of F-16 fighter jets to Ankara on the condition that it agrees to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.
He continued: “The condition put forward by the United States to Turkey for the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey was a successful deal, and we will wait for statements from Washington on this matter.”
For its part, the Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Swedish Ambassador to Ankara and informed him of the Turkish government’s displeasure and the measures that Stockholm should take to bridge the differences between the two countries.
Turkish Parliament Speaker Mustafa Sentop also canceled a visit that his Swedish counterpart was supposed to make to Ankara.
It is noteworthy that Finland and Sweden applied on May 18, 2022 to join NATO, and this application was approved by 28 countries out of 30 members of the alliance, but the application has not yet been approved due to the refusal of Turkey and Hungary.
Source: News
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