by Sabine Siebold and John Irish
BERLIN, May 14 (Reuters) – The foreign ministers of Finland, Sweden and Turkey will hold talks in Berlin on Saturday to try to resolve disagreements over Finnish and Swedish plans to join NATO, as the alliance meets against the backdrop of war in Ukraine.
The Nordic states are preparing to apply for membership of the 30-member transatlantic alliance in response to what they see as a fundamentally altered security environment by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This project arouses threats of reprisals from Moscow and objections from Turkey, a member of NATO.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters upon his arrival in Berlin that it was “unacceptable and outrageous” that potential new NATO members would lend their support to the Kurdish militant group PKK, potentially complicating expansion of the alliance.
“The problem is that these two countries openly support and engage with the PKK and the YPG. They are terrorist organizations that attack our troops every day,” he said, adding that he would speak with its Swedish and Finnish counterparts on Saturday evening.
“A large majority of the Turkish people are against the accession of these countries (…) and ask us to block this accession”, he said.
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavesto expressed confidence that a solution could be found while Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde told Swedish news agency TT that she would seek to clear up any misunderstandings.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has promised the two Nordic countries a warm welcome and a quick accession procedure, but Turkey has unexpectedly slowed down the process.
Jens Stoltenberg, who cannot attend the Berlin meeting after testing positive for COVID, spoke by phone with several ministers before the talks began, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Finland and Sweden.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he could not support the Nordic countries’ plans given that they were home to “many terrorist organizations”. But his spokesman told Reuters on Saturday that Turkey had not closed the door on Sweden and Finland joining NATO. nL5N2X60D4
Members of the alliance will explore security guarantees for Finland and Sweden for the duration of a ratification period that could last up to a year, during which the Nordic countries would not yet be protected by the article 5 of NATO guaranteeing that an attack against an ally is an attack against all its members.
They will also assess the military situation on the ground and their assistance to the Ukrainian army, while a first draft of NATO’s new strategic concept, its basic military doctrine, will be discussed before being potentially approved during a summit of leaders in Madrid, scheduled for the end of June.
“I think (Russian) President Vladimir Putin needs to look in the mirror. You reap what you sow,” Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said, adding that she was confident a consensus would be reached for that Finland and Sweden join the alliance.
(Additional reporting by Riham Alkoussa, Maria Sheahan and Alexander Ratz, French version Benjamin Mallet)