turkiye

• Erdogan said to hand over more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us.
• Erdogan’s demand was an angry reaction to an incident last week in Stockholm.
•  Türkiye canceled the Swedish speaker of parliament’s visit.

Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Türkiye before the Turkish parliament will approve their bids to join NATO, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two Nordic countries asked to join NATO last year, but their bids must be accepted by all 30 NATO member states. The applications have yet to be approved by Türkiye and Hungary.

Türkiye has stated that Sweden, in particular, must first take a firmer position against what it considers terrorists, primarily Kurdish militants, whom it holds responsible for a 2016 coup attempt.

“We said, look, if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t push it (NATO application approval) through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan stated late Sunday, alluding to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November.

“For this to pass the parliament, first of all, you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.

“This must have been a reaction, I believe, to the events of the past days,” Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto told public broadcasters.

In response to the incident in Stockholm, Türkiye canceled the Swedish speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlen’s, planned visit to Ankara, instead sending him to Helsinki on Monday.

“We stress that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it,” the speaker of the Finnish parliament, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters at a joint news conference with Norlen.

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