Turkish daily Sabah explains background of NATO meeting with Sweden
The eyes were on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan again during the NATO summit, which was held in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The meeting President Erdoğan had yesterday with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg and Ulf Kristersston, Prime Minister of Sweden, was on the top agenda of the global media outlets. Erdoğan later interpreted the meeting by stating, “The game continues, the score is 0-0 for now. We need to wait for and see the upcoming minutes.”
Published July 12,2023
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, left, and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson shake hands next to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg prior to their meeting, on the eve of a NATO summit, in Vilnius, Monday, July 10, 2023. (AP)
According to the information that Turkish daily Sabah has acquired, in the meeting President Erdoğan pointed out Türkiye's discomfort with the actions by the supporters of the terrorist organization PKK, and the provocations done against Muslims by burning the Qur'an in Sweden, very clearly.
Erdoğan left the word with Sweden by stating, "Our base consists of national conservatives, and our nation needs to be convinced after the events that took place in Sweden."
President Erdoğan, who mentioned that they would hand the case of Sweden's NATO membership over to the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM), emphasized that, "The decision is up to the parliament." Ulf Kristersston, Prime Minister of Sweden also said: "We are not going to let PKK/YPG or FETÖ take away our country."
In the statement after the meeting, Ulf Kristersston also said: "Sweden and Turkey have agreed to continue their cooperation within the framework of both the Permanent Tripartite Joint Mechanism which was established at the 2022 Madrid NATO summit, and a new Bilateral Security Agreement that will meet every year at the ministerial level and create working groups when necessary. At the first meeting of the Security Compact, Sweden will present a roadmap for the full implementation of all of the elements of the Tripartite Agreement, including Article 4, as the basis for its fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Sweden repeats that it will not support YPG/PYD, PKK and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ) in Turkey."
The first foursquare that was being prepared for the meeting was intended to refer only to Article 4 of the Madrid Declaration. However, after Erdoğan's direct atittude of "I will see an aspect of the determination for the fight against PKK/FETÖ on the declaration," the sentence was added to it. Therefore, PKK and FETÖ was added to another NATO document, after the Trilateral Momerandum in Madrid.
"THE MAN WHO CHANGED THE AXIS OF NATO'S FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM"
After the meeting in Vilnius, a new phase was entered on the case of NATO's security mission about how to fight with terrorism. NATO's agenda of their fight against terrorism will become a tangible mechanism for the first time. An office of the coordinator for counterterrorism will be commissioned for the first time in the history of Sweden, and a dual security mechanism will be established between Sweden and Türkiye.
