Giving a signal, President Erdogan Will Agree to Finland's NATO Membership Without Sweden?

JAKARTA - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled the possibility of Ankara agreeing to Finland joining NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) before Sweden on Sunday, amid rising tensions with Stockholm.

"We may convey a different message to Finland (regarding the NATO membership application) and Sweden will be surprised when they see our message. But Finland should not make the same mistake as Sweden did," President Erdogan said in a televised address on Monday. Sunday, according to Reuters January 30.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and require the approval of all member states to join.

So far, only Turkey and Hungary have not ratified the membership of the Nordic countries to join NATO.

Turkey says Sweden, in particular, harbors what Ankara says are militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.

"We gave Sweden a list of 120 people and told them to extradite those terrorists in their country. If you don't extradite them, then sorry about that," President Erdogan said, referring to Turkey's agreements with Sweden and Finland last June regarding NATO applications.

It is known that Ankara suspended NATO talks with Sweden and Finland last week after protests in Stockholm, in which a far-right politician burned a copy of the Koran in front of the Turkish Embassy.

Last week, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his country wanted to restore NATO dialogue with Turkey. However, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Thursday it was meaningless to restart talks.

Foreign Minister Cavusoglu also said "there was no offer to evaluate Sweden and Finland's NATO membership separately."