Sweden has promised to extradite 73 terrorists to Turkiye, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday, as he called on the country and Finland to fulfil their promises to Ankara in a deal to lift its veto on their NATO membership bids.
Erdoğan made the remarks during a news conference in Madrid at the end of a NATO summit, Turkiye state-run TRT World reported.
The Turkiye leader described Ankara’s signing of a memorandum to fight terror with Stockholm and Helsinki as a “diplomatic victory,” according to TRT.
Turkiye, Sweden and Finland ended weeks of diplomatic wrangling and signed a trilateral memorandum prior to a NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday. The deal extends full support against threats to each other’s national security.
Erdoğan had raised objections against the two countries joining NATO, saying they were failing to combat terrorism. Turkiye has demanded that alleged members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomous rights on Turkiye soil for the last four decades, and the Gülen movement, which it blames for a failed military coup in 2016, be extradited to stand trial.
Following Wednesday’s memorandum, NATO formally accepted the two Nordic countries’ applications to join the alliance.
“We have strongly emphasised the message that we expect genuine solidarity from our allies, not only in words but also in action,” he told reporters after the summit at which the Nordic countries were formally invited into the transatlantic defence alliance.
“If they do not fulfil promised obligations, the memorandum will not reach Turkish parliament for approval,” Erdogan said, adding that it was important to demonstrate NATO’s determination to fight terrorism “in all its forms.”
