ANKARA: Turkey on Thursday said a new “permanent committee” would meet Finnish and Swedish officials in August to assess if the two nations are complying with Ankara’s conditions to ratify their NATO membership bids.
Finland and Sweden dropped their history of military non-alignment and announced plans to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February.
All 30 NATO members must ratify the accession.
NATO member Turkey has demanded the extradition of dozens of suspected “terrorists” from both countries under an accession deal the three signed last month.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to “freeze” the process over Sweden and Finland’s failure to extradite the suspects.
He accuses them of providing a haven for outlawed Kurdish militants.
“If these countries are not implementing the points included in the memorandum that we signed, we will not ratify the accession protocol,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reaffirmed in a televised interview.
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He said the committee would meet in August but provided no details. Turkey’s parliament has broken for its summer recess and will not be able to hold a ratification vote before October.
Some Turkish officials have warned that the process may drag out until next year.
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