Erdogan said that Turkey will officially oppose Sweden’s NATO membership.

ISTANBUL (AP). In a video released Thursday, the Turkish President said Turkey would oppose Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Atatürk, Youth and Youth and Sports Branches to a group of Turkish youth. , national holiday.

Turkey’s approval of Finland and Sweden’s offer to join the Western military alliance is critical, as NATO takes decisions by consensus. Each of the 30 member states has the right to veto its membership application.

Erdogan said Turkey’s opposition comes from Sweden’s – and to a lesser extent, Finland’s support for the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and an armed group in Syria that Turkey sees as an extension of the PKK. Conflicts with the PKK have cost the lives of tens of thousands of people since 1984.

“Guesthouse for terrorist organizations” – Turkey opposes Sweden and Finland joining NATO https://t.co/MZ9Ryuj85Q

– Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 15, 2022

Turkey also accuses Sweden and Finland of harboring followers of US Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who was accused by the Turkish government of attempting a military coup in 2016.

The full text of Erdogan’s interview with the youth on the occasion of the feast in 1919, when the Turkish War of Independence began, is expected to be published on Thursday evening. It was not immediately clear when the conversation took place.

In comments published earlier on Thursday, Erdogan accused the two NATO members, and in particular Sweden, of being “a nest of terror, a nest of terror”. He accused them of providing financial and military support to armed groups and said the countries’ alleged ties to terrorist organizations meant they should not be part of the transatlantic alliance.

Turkish officials, including the president, cited Turkey’s arms restrictions as the reason Ankara opposed the two countries joining NATO.

Several European countries, including Sweden and Finland, have restricted arms exports to Turkey following the country’s 2019 cross-border operation in northeastern Syria, with the goal of clearing its border from Kurdish militants.

Turkey said the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defense Units, or YPG, were directly linked to the PKK, and Ankara had failed in American support against ISIS.