On Thursday, as the NATO summit came to a conclusion, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a warning that Sweden and Finland’s membership in NATO would still be delayed if they did not uphold their end of an agreement with Ankara to extradite persons it considers to be “terrorists.”
Erdogan claimed that Sweden had agreed to extradite 73 individuals he claimed had ties to the PKK and the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Erdogan believes was behind the 2016 coup attempt.
Erdogan cited a 10-point agreement struck with Finland and Sweden as a diplomatic triumph that he perceived, acknowledging Ankara’s worries about terrorist threats at the summit’s conclusion in Madrid.
Erdogan claimed that Turkey’s parliament would still have the option of rejecting the accord if the Nordic states went back on the pact.
If we don’t pass this in our parliament, this operation won’t succeed, claimed Erdogan. First, Sweden and Finland must carry out their obligations, which are stated in the text. But obviously, we wouldn’t send it to our parliament if they didn’t comply with this.
Erdogan warned the presidents of Sweden and Finland in May that he would veto their applications to join NATO unless they stopped what he saw as their support for “terror” organisations that posed a threat to Turkey’s security.
Sweden has taken action to alleviate concerns that the agreement may lead to extraditions without adhering to its laws’ requirements.
“I know there are some people who are worried that we’re going to start to hunt people and extradite them, and I think it’s important to say that we always follow Swedish laws and international conventions, and we never extradite Swedish citizens,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told public broadcaster SVT on Wednesday.
