By Athena Papakosta

Sweden, Finland and Turkey continued the tripartite talks that were suspended in January yesterday at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. The General Secretary of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, kept his tone low for the said meeting, while not long ago he downplayed the simultaneous accession of the two Nordic countries to the North Atlantic Alliance.

This tripartite meeting was a new attempt to cover as much distance as possible until the Summit of the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Vilnius in early July.

“Finland and Sweden have taken unprecedented steps to address Turkey’s legitimate security concerns,” Mr Stoltenberg said at the start of the talks, adding “now is the time for all allies to complete the ratification process (s.s. of inclusion)”.

According to the announcement “express ratifications for both Finland and Sweden will be in everyone’s interest and their participation as members will strengthen the Alliance”.

After the meeting, İbrahim Kalin, adviser to the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, emphasized that the progress recorded in the past “is satisfactory and steps have also been recorded in some areas. We have expressed our satisfaction with these efforts but, of course, the process is not over yet.”

For the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the ratification of the protocols by all 30 of its members is required. The two Nordic countries abandoned their traditional positions of neutrality and a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, they applied to join NATO. For its part, Turkey since last May has been resisting and blackmailing Sweden’s admission, claiming that Stockholm protects members of terrorist organizations.

Sweden and Finland applied for membership but faced objections from Turkey that they support Kurdish enclaves of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG). In fact, Ankara recently stated that it would only approve Helsinki’s request to join NATO.

“We expect that what was agreed in Madrid will be respected. If that happens, then both countries can join NATO,” President Erdogan’s spokesman Kalin told reporters.

Meanwhile, the Swedish government yesterday sent a draft anti-terrorism law to parliament hoping Ankara will be persuaded and lift its objections. According to the Swedish Minister of Justice, Gunnar Strömer, this bill – if passed by the Swedish parliamentarians – will enter into force in June.

During a press conference after the tripartite talks in Brussels, the Swedish chief negotiator, Oscar Stenström, also referred to the memorandum signed by the three countries to pave the way for integration. In particular, he emphasized that “we see that Turkey has recognized that Sweden and Finland have taken concrete steps in this agreement, which is a good sign.”

As a next step, we now expect a new tripartite meeting, but for now no date has been set, while at the same time Hungary has not given the green light for the admission of these two Nordic countries to the North Atlantic Alliance without making any demands. by the two European member states with the Hungarian parliament currently debating whether or not to ratify their NATO membership.