Swedish Foreign Minister Anne Linde pointed out that “negotiations with Turkey on NATO membership became more difficult after the Left Party MPs raised the flag of the PKK”, noting that “Turkish media constantly covers this event and similar activities, according to Swedish law, this is considered freedom of speech, but we believe that this is a completely inappropriate situation for the government.”

Speaking about the last meeting of the delegations on August 26, she said in a press interview that “the meeting was supposed to take place in Sweden, but for a number of practical reasons it was moved to Finland”, and added: the work carried out in the field of reaching agreements on strengthening cooperation in the fight with terrorism.

The meeting of the delegations of Turkey, Sweden and Finland on NATO membership took place on August 26 in the suburbs of the Finnish capital, and discussions at the expert level will continue in autumn. Turkey, Finland and Sweden agreed in a tripartite memorandum signed in Madrid in June 2022 to establish a permanent joint mechanism to monitor the implementation of the memorandum and enhance cooperation in the field of common security.

It is noteworthy that on May 18 Finland and Sweden submitted an application to the NATO Secretary General to join the alliance, and now the two countries are awaiting ratification of their applications. As of August 23, 23 out of 30 countries have ratified two requests but have not yet ratified: Spain, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, Turkey, Czech Republic and Hungary.