Turkiye, Finland and Sweden agree to continue talks to discuss security concerns

Officials from Turkiye, Finland and Sweden agreed on Friday to continue talks in the coming months to discuss security concerns raised by Turkiye as a pre-condition of allowing the two Nordic countries to join NATO.

Officials from the three countries held the first of these meetings on Friday in the Finnish city, Vantaa.

Foreign Minister of Finland, Pekka Haavisto, said the meeting aimed to establish communication and determine goals for cooperation that the countries agreed to, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding at the NATO Madrid summit in June.

The Finnish Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the meeting “the participants discussed the concrete steps to implement the Trilateral Memorandum and agreed that the mechanism will continue to meet at the expert level during the autumn”.

The two Nordic countries applied for NATO membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; however, Turkiye opposed this and accused them of imposing arms embargoes on it and supporting groups it deems terrorists.

The Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, urged the two countries to extradite two suspects wanted in terrorism-related cases, while the two countries said they did not agree to extradite specific individuals when they signed the Memorandum of Understanding.

The Finnish Foreign Ministry remained tight-lipped about the meeting on Friday, refusing to reveal where or when it was held, but later said it was held in the city of Vantaa, near the capital, Helsinki.

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