Turkey cancelled an upcoming trilateral mechanism meeting with Sweden and Finland in response to the weekend protest that took place in Stockholm that angered Ankara. The meeting comes as both Sweden and Finland are seeking Turkey’s approval to be able to join the NATO alliance.
Turkish state television TRT said on Tuesday that Ankara had postponed the upcoming trilateral meeting in February with Sweden and Finland in Brussels, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg was also expected to attend the upcoming meeting.
This comes as Erdogan said on Monday that Sweden and Finland should not expect Ankara’s approval of their joint application to be part of the alliance. Erdogan’s comments were in response to the protests in Stockholm over the weekend near the Turkish embassy that included burning a copy of the Koran.
Sweden and Finland filed a joint application to join the NATO alliance last year as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The two countries need unanimous approval in order to join the alliance, but Turkey and Hungary are the only countries that have yet to ratify their application for accession.
Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday that a few weeks’ pauses in the trilateral talks with Sweden and Turkey for NATO were needed. Haavisto also said that it seems unlikely that Ankara would approve of Sweden and Finland’s applications until after Turkey holds its elections in mid-May.
Speaking at a news conference, Haavisto said the next window of opportunity to gain Turkey’s approval would be at the annual NATO summit on July 11-12. Haavisto said he spoke with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavosoglu, noting that Ankara is feeling pressure due to the upcoming elections.
Haavisto’s Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson told reporters that Stockholm has called for calm and restraint following the protests and hoped to restore dialogue with Ankara as soon as possible. Kristersson reiterated the importance of joining NATO and that there was no contradiction between exercising freedom of speech in Sweden and advancing in the process of joining the military alliance.