ISTANBUL: Turkiye has indefinitely postponed a new round of talks with Sweden and Finland on the Nordic neighbors’ NATO membership bids, Turkish state media reported on Tuesday.
The talks were due to be held next month, the reports said, citing Turkish diplomatic sources.
Turkiye’s decision came a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Sweden he would not support its bid to join the Western US-led defense alliance.
Bids to join NATO must be ratified by all members of the alliance, of which Turkiye is a member.
Ankara has been outraged by the burning of the Qur’an by an anti-Islam protester outside its embassy in Stockholm over the weekend.
The protest was approved by the Swedish police, despite Turkiye’s fierce objections.
Erdogan’s comments and Tuesday’s postponement diminishes Sweden and Finland’s prospects of joining the bloc before Turkiye’s parliamentary and presidential polls in May.
Finland hinted for the first time on Tuesday that it might consider joining NATO without Sweden because of Stockholm’s diplomatic problems with Ankara.
Previous rounds of the tri-party NATO talks have been attended by foreign ministry officials and focused on a specific list of Turkish demands, which include the expulsion of dozens of mostly Kurdish suspects.
Turkiye and Hungary are the only NATO members not to have ratified the Nordic neighbors’ historic decision to break their tradition of military non-alignment in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has promised his parliament would approve the two bids next month.
Turkiye postpones NATO meeting with Sweden, Finland
https://arab.news/zz93g
Turkiye postpones NATO meeting with Sweden, Finland
- Bids to join NATO must be ratified by all members of the alliance, of which Turkiye is a member
- Ankara has been outraged by the burning of the Qur’an by an anti-Islam protester outside its embassy in Stockholm
Gazan family takes legal action against UK govt for preventing them settling in Britain
- Family members trying to reunite with their father but have been refused key travel documents
- Gaza currently has no facilities to collect biometric data that UK requires
LONDON: A Palestinian family is taking legal action against the British government over a decision to bar them from settling in the UK.
The six family members, ranging in age from 14 to 23 years old, are seeking to leave Gaza and reunite with their father, but have been denied entry for security reasons.
UK government lawyers said it is official policy not to allow access to the country without biometric data, which is currently impossible to obtain or submit in Gaza.
In order to gather the relevant data, the family would need to exit Gaza via Jordan, which would require the provision of onward travel assurances by the UK government, which have not been granted.
At a court hearing on Monday, government lawyer Rory Dunlop said via written submission that giving the OTAs would be a “step too far” from current policy.
“An OTA is an exception to that policy because it requires the Secretary of State for the Home Department to guarantee entry before biometrics have been checked,” he said.
“Every exception to Her (His) Majesty’s Government biometric policy carries risks to national and border security because the individual may pose a risk that can only be identified by their biometrics.
“That is particularly so in a case, as here, where some of the claimants seeking an OTA are adults living in an area where there has been significant terrorist activity.”
The family say the decision to reject their applications is a breach of their human rights. Lawyer Charlotte Kilroy, acting on behalf of the family, said each member could prove their identity via their passports, and Israeli authorities had already approved their application to transit through the country to Jordan.
“Israel uses tools of mass-surveillance in Gaza, meaning any risks they posed related to terrorism activity in the region would have been identified,” Kilroy said.
“The claimants have never left Gaza, meaning there is no real prospect of their data being held or showing risk to the public interest in UK biometric checks.”
At an earlier hearing in December, when the decision was taken to reject the applications, Kilroy noted that the family’s father was taking medication to improve his mental health as the situation had left him worried over the safety of his relatives.
Earlier, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood won the right to restrict migrants using the European Convention on Human Rights to settle in the UK, after the Court of Appeal agreed with her that a scheme opened for Ukrainian refugees could not be used by others, following a Palestinian family’s attempts to use it to justify coming to Britain.
