Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said that “solving the problems of Finland and Turkey regarding our country’s membership in NATO may take several weeks, while negotiations with Turkey will continue at the official level, we must be patient and this will take several weeks. “

In a statement, he noted that “Finland can provide Turkey with a guarantee that relations with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey will be closely monitored”, noting that he is “optimistic” about resolving disagreements with Turkey over membership in NATO.

Earlier, the Financial Times wrote that “Turkey prevented the start of the process of considering the application of Finland and Sweden to join NATO.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “Ankara cannot say yes to Finland and Sweden’s membership in NATO because it does not believe their assurances about relations with representatives of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is banned in Turkey.” And if Turkey agrees, then NATO, according to Erdogan, “will not be a security organization, but will become a place where there will be many representatives of terrorists,” and countries cannot be accepted into the alliance without the unanimous consent of all its members.