Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Once Again.. Ankara Blackmails NATO


Sat 07 Dec 2019 | 04:00 PM
Yassmine Elsayed

Foreign Minister of Turkey Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu affirmed that Ankara would prevent the final publication of the NATO plan to defend the Baltic states and Poland until NATO members agree to classify the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units as a terrorist organization.

His remarks came two days after a summit during which NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that Turkey withdrew its objection.

Çavuşoğlu made it clear that Ankara had agreed to the next step in the process but had not given final approval. He described Ankara's position during the summit as a "gesture to its allies" and said that Ankara would block the plan until a defense proposal for Turkey is approved, which Ankara says should include supporting its view on the YPG.

Earlier, the Guardian quoted Turkish President Recep Tayyeb Erdoğan saying: “If our friends at Nato do not recognise as terrorist organisations those we consider terrorist organisations ... we will stand against any step that will be taken there.”

“Nato is an institution where Turkey has full veto rights, politically and militarily, and there are procedures here,” Turkish government officials said.

At the same time, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stressed that the time "when Europe was totally giving to others the task of ensuring its security had passed," calling on the Europeans to be "proactive" within NATO "more organized and balanced".

At the opening of an international forum on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain in Prague, the French diplomat called for "true European sovereignty", including in the digital sphere.

"I hope that by 2020 we will be able to launch with European countries wishing to have an idea about European digital sovereignty," he said. "We have a vision of the digital world that we want: free, open, and secure," he added.