Sweden Took No Concrete Steps Towards Fulfilling Obligations on NATO Accession, Ankara Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Turkey does not see concrete steps from Sweden with regards to fulfilling its obligations to Ankara on the country's accession to NATO, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday.

The Sweden-Turkey relations deteriorated due to the recent controversial demonstration by the leader of Danish far-right party Stram Kurs, Rasmus Paludan, who burnt the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm 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. Last week, a source told Sputnik that trilateral talks between Turkey, Sweden and Finland on NATO membership were postponed at Ankara's request.

"We haven't seen any concrete steps, convincing concrete steps from Sweden, particularly, to honor their commitments and to implement this trilateral memorandum," Cavusoglu said at a press conference with his Estonian counterpart, Urmas Reinsalu.

The minister added that Turkey does not impose the idea of separate NATO bids on Finland and Sweden, but Ankara is ready to reconsider Helsinki's application if there is such a decision.

"At this moment, it is not up to Turkey to separate [Sweden's, Finland's NATO bids]. It is up to these two countries, but mainly NATO. If NATO and the two countries decide to separate the membership processes of Finland and Sweden, Turkey will of course reconsider Finland's membership separately, and more favorably, I can say," Cavusoglu said.

On Tuesday, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said that the country could consider an accession procedure separate from Sweden after Stockholm hit a roadblock on its NATO path over tensions with Ankara. However, later in the day he denied that Helsinki was considering such a possibility and said that Finland and Sweden continued to act jointly.