Turkish President Erdogan Calls Sweden And Finland Must Hand Over About 130 Terrorists For NATO Membership Approval

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Source: Presidency of The Republic of Turkey)

JAKARTA - Sweden, and Finland must hand over some 130 terrorists to Turkey before the country's Parliament approves North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership for both, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

The two Nordic countries last year signed up to join NATO after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, they had to get the approval of all members of the alliance's 30 nations. So far, Turkey and Hungary have not approved the application.

Turkey says Sweden, in particular, must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, especially Kurdish militants and the group blamed for the 2016 coup attempt.

"We said, so if you don't hand over your terrorists to us, we can't pass it (the approval of the NATO application) through parliament," President Erdogan said in comments late on Sunday, referring to the joint press. a conference he organized with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November, reported Reuters January 16.

"For this to pass parliament, first you have to hand over to us more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists," President Erdogan continued.

Meanwhile, Finland's foreign minister interpreted President Erdogan's request as an angry response to an incident in Stockholm last week in which a statue of the Turkish leader was hung during a small protest.

"I believe this must be a reaction to the events of the last few days," Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told public broadcaster YLE.

Haavisto said he was not aware of any new formal demands from Turkey.

In response to the incident in Stockholm, Turkey canceled a planned visit to Ankara by the speaker of the Swedish parliament, Andreas Norlen, who instead went to Helsinki on Monday.

"We emphasize that in Finland and Sweden, we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it," Finland's parliamentary speaker, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters in a joint news conference with Norlen.

Separately on Monday, Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said his country was in a "good position" to secure Turkey's ratification of its NATO overture.

Earlier, President Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Saturday, time for the Turkish parliament to ratify the membership of Sweden and Finland is running out, ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections planned for May.