The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO would be a “error“Like that of Greece’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance Treaty, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan judged on Friday, May 13.
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The Head of State explained to the press that he “does not want to see the same mistake made again when Greece joined», accusing Stochkholm and Helsinki «to harbor PKK terrorists», the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. “We don’t have a positive review“, he insisted.
Reference to Greece’s “error”
“We are currently following the developments concerning Sweden and Finland, but we do not have a positive opinion, because they made a mistake in NATO concerning Greece before, against Turkey“, declared the head of state at the end of the Friday prayer in Istanbul. “Moreover, the Scandinavian countries, unfortunately, are almost like guesthouses for terrorist organizations“, he added citing the PKK, classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey but also the European Union and the United States.
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Turkey’s reaction is the first dissonant voice within NATO on the prospect of Finland and Sweden joining the Atlantic Alliance. Since the start of the crisis and then the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ankara has done everything to maintain good relations with the two countries, on which its economy is closely dependent.
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