Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said talks with Sweden and Finland on NATO membership would resume on March 9. The dialogue was suspended in January in connection with a protest in Stockholm where the Quran was burned.
Earlier, Turkey pulled out of a tripartite mechanism with Sweden and Finland to discuss their bid for NATO membership after Rasmus Paludan, leader of Denmark’s far-right Hard Deal political party, burned a Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January.
“My colleagues will attend the March 9 meeting,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara, adding that the meeting would be held in Brussels.
However, he said that Sweden was still failing to meet the commitments made in accordance with the memorandum signed at the NATO summit in Madrid last June, despite the NATO secretary general and other allies saying that Stockholm had made changes to its legislation.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t seen satisfactory steps from Sweden to implement the Madrid memorandum,” Cavusoglu said. “We can’t say yes to Sweden’s NATO bid until we see these moves.”
Turkey announced the resumption of negotiations with Sweden and Finland in March
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