Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said that “the coffee break marked a turning point in the negotiations with Turkey to resolve the differences over Finland and Sweden joining NATO.”

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo, he described the joint statement signed with Ankara as a “success”, pointing out that “we have been negotiating for a long time, and there were many different wordings of the text, our representatives were negotiating in Ankara, and we also held several meetings in Brussels”.

And Haavisto thought: “Honestly, I didn’t expect that we would be able to resolve this (NATO summit dispute) in Madrid because there were still many open questions,” adding: “This is more of a political declaration than a legal agreement, we don’t need change our laws. All steps will be taken in accordance with our existing laws.”

He pointed out that “the main point is to strengthen cooperation, and we are ready to receive information from the Turkish authorities and cooperate on issues related to terrorism, but all decisions will be made in accordance with Finnish law.”

“Currently, we do not have open extradition cases for PKK members and we have promised to consider requests when they arrive, but we will do so in accordance with Finnish law,” Haavisto explained.

Earlier, the Turkish authorities said that they “have made tangible progress in the fight against terrorism” during a quadripartite summit involving Turkey, Sweden, Finland and NATO in Madrid.