Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdogan has demanded Sweden and Finland to deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before the Turkish parliament gives approval to their bids to join NATO.
The two Nordic states have applied to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The only delay that is happening in their acceptance is that the application needs to be approved by all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungry are yet to give approval to their application.
“We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it (approval of the NATO application) through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan said in comments late on Sunday, referring to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November.
“For this to pass the parliament, first of all, you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.
Erdogan’s demand was seen by Finnish MPs as an angry retaliation to a recent episode in Stockholm when an effigy of the Turkish president was erected during what looked to be a minor protest.
“We stress that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it,” the speaker of the Finnish parliament, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters at a joint news conference with Norlen.
Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said that his country is in a “good position” to secure Turkey’s ratification for its NATO bid. However, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Saturday that time was running out for Turkey’s parliament to ratify the bids before presidential and parliamentary elections in May.
