Turkey is waiting for Sweden and Finland to fulfill the obligations under which the two countries signed for Ankara to approve their membership in NATO, Minister of National Defense Hulusi Akar said.
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Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said earlier that against the backdrop of actions with the burning of the Koran, the process of the kingdom’s entry into NATO was suspended, but expressed hope that agreements with Ankara could be reached at the summit of the foreign ministries of the alliance countries in Vilnius in July. According to a source in Ankara, the tripartite mechanism for the process of membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO has been suspended for an indefinite period at the request of the Turkish side.
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“In Madrid in June, as you know, our President, the Prime Minister of Sweden, the President of Finland, the Ministers of Defense and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs met and signed a document in the presence of the Secretary General of NATO … They are currently awaiting approval from us, from our Parliament, to join NATO. We say: “Follow the demands that you signed up to.” It’s that simple,” Akar said.
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The leader of the Danish far-right Hard Deal party, Rasmus Paludan, held another rally on Friday with the burning of a copy of the Koran, this time in front of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen, near a mosque in the capital of Denmark. Later it became known that a similar action was held at the consular department of the Russian Embassy in Denmark, located in Copenhagen.
