A quadripartite meeting was held in Madrid, Spain, with the participation of the leaders of Turkey, Sweden and Finland, as well as the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The meeting, which is taking place on the sidelines of a NATO summit, is an attempt to lift Turkey’s veto over Finland and Sweden’s entry into the alliance, Agence France-Presse reported, citing Swedish and Finnish officials.
While Turkey’s Anatolia Agency said four priority issues were “devouring the most prominent files” on the agenda, namely: new measures to be taken in connection with the continuation of the Ukrainian crisis, requests from Sweden and Finland for NATO membership, proposals to strengthen the European structure of the alliance and show China as an “enemy” of NATO, like Russia. According to the agency.
The meeting with the participation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg took place on the site of the alliance’s summit scheduled for Tuesday in Madrid.
Turkey is blocking Sweden and Finland from joining the alliance, accusing them of harboring fighters from the PKK, an organization that Ankara classifies as “terrorist.”
Source: Anatolia + AFP