Swedish Chief Negotiator Has No Idea When NATO Talks With Turkey Will Resume

Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara's objections to their accession to NATO, but the recent anti-Turkish demonstrations in Stockholm prompted Turkey to freeze the dialogue indefinitely.

The Swedish chief negotiator leading the NATO accession talks has no idea when the negotiations with Turkey will resume.

"I hope to contact my colleague by phone next week, but it's unclear when we will meet in person," Oscar Stenström said on Sunday.

Stenström once again confirmed that the Swedish-Turkish dialogue had been put on hold, after Ankara postponed the talks over a series of provocations in the Nordic country, including burning of the Quran near the Turkish Embassy.

“My colleague and I agreed that it makes no sense to have confidential conversations and meet in person. It will probably only exacerbate the situation. Now we are working separately,” Stenström explained.

On January 21, Ankara called off a planned visit by Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson in response to the burning of a copy of the Islamic holy book outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the scheduled January 27 visit by his Swedish counterpart no longer held “any importance or point,” because Stockholm continued to allow “disgusting” demonstrations against Ankara.

Jonson, for his part, tweeted that he had met his Turkish counterpart at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where they “agreed to postpone” the meeting.

“Relations with Turkey are very important for Sweden and we look forward to continuing the dialogue on common security and defense issues at a later date,” Jonson said.

Turkish-Swedish relations went into a downward spiral after Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan received permission from police to stage a protest outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, where he burned a copy of the Quran. While Swedish authorities have stressed that freedom of expression is guaranteed by law and gives people extensive rights to express their views publicly, Turkish officials have denounced the Quran burning and Stockholm for green-lighting it.

“Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of ‘freedom of expression’ is completely unacceptable. This is an outright hate crime,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Several days before that, pro-Kurdish activists hanged an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Stockholm. Ankara denounced the act as "terrorism" and summoned the Swedish ambassador, while Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called it "sabotage" against Sweden’s bid to join NATO and condemned the "mock execution of a foreign democratically-elected leader."

Paludan has since repeatedly set copies of the Quran alight, promising to continue with the incendiary stunt until Sweden is accepted into NATO.

The bid by historically nonaligned Sweden and Finland to join NATO in the wake of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine has been held up by Turkey, which has accused the Nordic states of sheltering Kurdish militants.

Ankara claims that Sweden has been a sanctuary for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist group in Turkey, and has demanded that Stockholm extradite dozens of Kurds. Sweden, for its part, said that it would not be able to meet all the conditions that Ankara had set.