ANKARA/HELSINKI: Finland and Sweden should change their laws if needed to meet Turkey’s demands and win its backing for their bid to join NATO, the Turkish foreign minister said on Tuesday, doubling down on a threat to veto a historic enlargement of the alliance.
In a move that shocked its allies, Turkey on May 13 objected to Finland and Sweden joining NATO on the grounds that they harbor people linked to groups it deems terrorists, including the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and because they halted arm exports to Turkey in 2019. The Nordic states applied to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
All 30 NATO members must approve any enlargement plans.
Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey, a NATO member for seven decades, would not lift its veto unless its demands were met, echoing recent comments by President Tayyip Erdogan.
Ankara has said Sweden and Finland must halt their support for the PKK and other groups, bar them from organizing any events on their territory, extradite those sought by Turkey on terrorism charges, support Ankara’s military and counter-terrorism operations, and lift all arms exports restrictions.
Finland and Sweden have sought to negotiate a solution and other NATO capitals have said they remain confident that the objections raised by Turkey — which has NATO’s second biggest military — can be overcome.
Cavusoglu said Turkey had given visiting Finnish and Swedish delegations documents outlining the demands during talks in Ankara last week and that it was awaiting their response, adding he expected allies to work to address the security concerns.
“Are our demands impossible? No. We want them to halt their support for terror,” Cavusoglu told the state-run Anadolu news agency, adding Ankara was aware that some of its demands would require laws to be amended.
“They put it this way: ‘since we are far away from terror regions, our laws are designed that way’. Well, then you need to change them,” he said. “They say it is allowed for the terrorist organization to organize events and wave their rags around. Then you have to change your law.”
The Nordic states have said they condemn terrorism and are open to dialogue.
Cavusoglu said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was working on the issue and had proposed holding talks in Brussels with all three countries, but said Ankara saw no point before Stockholm and Helsinki had responded to its written demands.
“There need to be concrete things for us to discuss,” he said.
Earlier, Erdogan’s Communications Director Fahrettin Altun told Finland’s largest daily Helsingin Sanomat that Finland must take Turkey’s concerns seriously.
“Eventually Finland’s government must decide which is more important — to join NATO or protect these kinds of organizations,” he said, referring to the PKK and the other groups Ankara deems terrorists.
Turkey says Nordics must change laws if needed to meet its NATO demands
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Turkey says Nordics must change laws if needed to meet its NATO demands
- Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey, a NATO member for seven decades, would not lift its veto unless its demands were met
January settler attacks cause record West Bank displacement since Oct 2023: UN
- At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according OCHA figures
- OHCHR said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the West Bank
RAMALLAH: Israeli settler violence and harassment in the occupied West Bank displaced nearly 700 Palestinians in January, the United Nations said Thursday, the highest rate since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according to figures from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, which compiles data from various United Nations agencies.
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the West Bank.
January’s displacement numbers were particularly high in part due to the displacement of an entire herding community in the Jordan Valley, Ras Ein Al-Auja, whose 130 families left after months of harassment.
“What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers’ continuous and repeated attacks, day and night, for the past two years,” Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin resident, told AFP at the time.
Settlers in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, use herding to establish a presence on agricultural lands used by Palestinian communities and gradually deny them access to these areas, according to a 2025 report by Israeli NGO Peace Now.
To force Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, “with the backing of the Israeli government and military,” the settlement watchdog said.
“No one is putting the pressure on Israel or on the Israeli authorities to stop this and so the settlers feel it, they feel the complete impunity that they’re just free to continue to do this,” said Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of NGOS working to support Palestinian communities against displacement.
She pointed to a lack of attention on the West Bank as another driving factor.
“All eyes are focused on Gaza when it comes to Palestine, while we have an ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and nobody’s paying attention,” she told AFP.
West Bank Palestinians are also displaced when Israel’s military destroys structures and dwellings it says are built without permits.
In January, 182 more Palestinians were displaced due to home demolitions, according to OCHA.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to more than 500,000 Israelis living in settlements and outposts considered illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
