NATO Membership Talks With Finland & Sweden 'Pointless', Turkish Foreign Minister Says

ANKARA (Sputnik) - The tripartite mechanism among Turkey, Sweden and Finland on NATO membership has been postponed as Ankara sees no point in it at the moment, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday.

Sweden-Turkey relations deteriorated due to the recent controversial demonstration by the leader of Danish right-wing party Stram Kurs, Rasmus Paludan, who burnt the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on Saturday after receiving permission from the Swedish authorities. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sweden should not count on Turkish support for the application to join NATO. On Tuesday, trilateral talks among Turkey, Sweden and Finland on NATO membership were postponed at Ankara's request.

"Under these circumstances, trilateral talks are pointless. What is the essence of the mechanism? To comply with the terms of the memorandum punctually. But the current situation is unlikely to create a healthy atmosphere necessary for negotiations. Sweden has not taken serious steps to fulfill the terms of the memorandum, citing various reasons, like changing laws, the constitution. Therefore, there is no point in the mechanism now," Cavusoglu said at a press conference with his Serbian counterpart, Ivica Dacic, in Ankara.

On May 18, 2022, against the backdrop of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership, terminating decades of neutrality. Their accession protocols have already been ratified by all NATO members except Hungary and Turkey.