Sweden Denies Discussing Extraditions With Turkey in Madrid

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Sweden and Turkey have not discussed any specific arrangements on extradition of people designated "terrorist" and wanted by Ankara during their meeting in Madrid, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Tuesday.

"As you can see there is no mentioning of any lists or any numbers or anything in the memorandum and during our negotiations in Madrid there was also no mentioning of any numbers or specific lists," Linde said during a press conference after the signing of the NATO accession protocols of Sweden and Finland.

According to Linde, the memorandum serves the purpose of enhancing cooperation in counterterrorist activities and information exchange between the parties.

"We will honor the memorandum fully and there is of course no list or anything like that in the memorandum but what we will do is to have better cooperation when it comes to terrorism and also to get information and so on," the minister said, adding that Sweden would continue working on expulsions within its national legislation.

On June 28, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a memorandum committing them to full support in combating threats to each other's security. Turkey said that all its existing concerns were addressed and withdrew its objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The meeting took place in Madrid prior to the NATO summit.

On May 18, three months since the onset of the Ukraine crisis, Finland and Sweden submitted their NATO membership applications, abandoning decades of neutrality. Turkey initially blocked the applications’ review process over Helsinki and Stockholm's long-standing support of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey deems terrorist, and demanded that the Nordic states change their national legislation on counterterrorism and their policies on extraditions.