Ankara has conveyed its request to Sweden to work to tackle “terrorist” threats before approving the country’s application to join NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “We understand their security concerns and we want Sweden to meet ours,” Erdogan said after meeting the Swedish prime minister at the presidential palace in Ankara on Tuesday. The Turkish leader, who has accused the Scandinavian nation and neighboring Finland of harboring Kurdish rebel groups that are illegal in Turkey, added that he “sincerely wished” for Sweden to join the US-led military alliance. Another meeting on the NATO bid was scheduled for later this month, he said, without specifying a date. Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing policies of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO this year after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, fearing that Russian President Vladimir Putin might target them next. But Turkey, which joined NATO in 1952, has yet to approve their entry, which requires unanimous approval from existing alliance members. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he understood Turkey’s fight against “terrorism” and promised to meet its demands. Erdogan has asked Oslo and Helsinki to extradite members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Turkish state for decades and is considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies. Turkey has accused Sweden, in particular, of leniency towards the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). In June, he said he had provided Oslo and Helsinki with a list of people he wanted extradited. The PKK is blacklisted by Ankara and most of its Western allies. However, the YPG has been a key player in the US-led military alliance fighting the ISIL (ISIS) group in Syria. Christerson described Tuesday’s meeting with Erdogan as “very productive.” “Sweden will honor all the obligations it has undertaken towards Turkey to deal with the terrorist threat,” he said. “My government was elected only a few weeks ago with a mandate to put law and order first. And that includes dealing with terrorism and terrorist organizations like the PKK in Sweden,” he added. While Sweden has previously expressed support for the YPG and its political wing, Kristersson’s government appears to be distancing itself. Sweden’s parliament has announced it will vote next week on a constitutional amendment that would make it possible to strengthen “anti-terror” laws, a key demand of Turkey. The amendment would allow new laws to “restrict the freedom of association of groups involved in terrorism,” parliament said in a statement, adding that a vote was scheduled for November 16. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited Ankara last week to press the case for Sweden and Finland, saying their entry would “send a clear message to Russia”. Stoltenberg stressed that the two had agreed on concessions to Turkey in June, which included meeting its request to deport or extradite “terror suspects”. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto told reporters on Monday that he expects NATO membership to “happen in a reasonable time.” In August, Sweden announced that it had decided to extradite a man in his 30s wanted for fraud to Turkey. The move was the first time since Turkey sought publishing cooperation from Stockholm. Turkey lifted its veto on Finland and Sweden’s bid in June after weeks of tense negotiations. Turkey has since expressed frustration at the lack of progress.
