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NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg Plans New Meeting To Discuss Sweden’s Accession

By Chris King • Updated: 26 Jun 2023 • 20:23

Image of NATO, Swedish, Finnish and Turkish flags.

Image of NATO, Swedish, Finnish and Turkish flags. Credit: Andrzej Rostek/Shutterstock.com

An extraordinary meeting about Sweden’s NATO application will be held in Brussels soon, involving Sweden, Finland and Turkey.

This was announced today, Monday, June 26, by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. He spoke by phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday and decided that a new meeting should take place.

Speaking at a press conference in Lithuania, he said: “We agreed to convene a high-level meeting in Brussels before the summit in Vilnius. The intention is to make progress towards the completion of Sweden’s entry into NATO”.

Brussels will be the location for next week’s meeting which will be attended by foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs, and national security advisers.

Stoltenberg emphasised that Finland’s entry into the Alliance, and soon also Sweden’s, will further strengthen security in the Baltic region, according to svt.se.

Sweden’s terror legislation questioned by Istanbul

A recent post on the Turkish presidential administration’s website emphasised that Turkey maintained its “constructive attitude”.

It added however that Sweden’s new terror legislation: “would be meaningless, as long as PKK/PYD/YPG supporters freely organise demonstrations” in Sweden.

After the call, Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter that he had a good conversation with the Turkish President ahead of the Vilnius Summit.

He assured that they will: “take important decisions on terrorism, deterrence and defence”, adding that they will continue to work together on Sweden’s accession to NATO.

Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO at the same time

Finland and Sweden originally applied to join NATO at the same time. While Helsinki eventually saw its application ratified, politicians in Stockholm were subjected to a series of demands from Istanbul.

The subsequent burning of a copy of the Koran outside the city hall in Stockholm last January only added further fuel to the flames.

Rasmus Paludan, a far-right politician, enraged the Muslim world with his action, something which was later repeated in the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

Protesters in Stockholm then hung an effigy of the Turkish leader, escalating the situation even more. At that time, Turkey’s President Erdogan insisted that Sweden would never be allowed to join the Alliance.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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