Sweden aims to ease Turkey’s escalating tensions over its NATO bid

Sweden tried to ease tensions in the process of joining NATO after Turkey said it would stop it from joining and Finland said that a long-term problem might make it think about joining on its own.

At a news conference on Tuesday in Stockholm, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said, “We want to push for serenity in the process so that we may return to functional discussions between Sweden, Finland, and Turkey on our joint membership in NATO.”

Out of the 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, only Turkey and Hungary have not ratified the application. After a far-right protester set fire to the Koran in Stockholm on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan disqualified himself from backing Sweden’s application. US officials responded to his remarks by reiterating their support for NATO expansion.

Earlier on Tuesday, Finland raised the possibility for the first time that it would separate its NATO application from Sweden’s before moderating its tone and saying that a combined path is still feasible. Additionally, according to Haberturk TV, Sweden and Finland’s tripartite meetings regarding their application to join NATO were abruptly canceled at Turkey’s request.

The key right now, according to Kristersson, is to “lower the tone, be able to respect different positions, be able to talk to each other about big, important issues, and to be able to do it in a way that also makes the dialog with other countries, in this case Turkey and Finland, meaningful and possible.”

We are postponing the negotiations, as Kristersson insisted, but we are quite adamant that they should continue as soon as possible. The talks “are not cancelled; I want to underscore that.” The extreme polarization currently prevailing both domestically and abroad is detrimental to Swedish security, according to Kristersson.

Sweden’s chances of joining the alliance were cast in a fresh light by Erdogan’s remarks because the Turkish president left it unclear whether he is willing to change his position. Erdogan wants to strengthen his support among religious conservatives ahead of a May election.

Rasmus Paludan, a Danish far-right activist, set fire to a copy of the Koran near the Turkish embassy in central Stockholm on Saturday. This made Turkey very angry.

According to Kristersson, there are forces both inside and outside of Sweden that want to prevent Sweden from joining NATO. “In light of this, we need to identify the provocateurs who want to deteriorate Sweden’s relations with other nations in order to delay Sweden’s entry into NATO.”