ANKARA: Turkiye and Sweden will hold their first meeting on Wednesday addressing a security pact the sides agreed to ensure Ankara’s approval of Stockholm’s NATO membership bid, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Tuesday.
The meeting will take place during a visit to Ankara by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, and it carried “special importance” in terms of improving cooperation on terrorism, the source said.
Turkiye approved Sweden’s bid to join the military alliance in January after a more than year-long delay over concerns about Sweden’s stance on groups and individuals it deems terrorists, and over an arms embargo that Stockholm later lifted.
As part of the approval, Ankara demanded that Stockholm amend anti-terrorism laws and crack down on members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — also labelled a terrorist group by the United States and European Union — as well as a group it accuses of orchestrating a 2016 failed putsch.
The formation of the “Security Compact” was agreed by NATO’s then-chief Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish and Swedish leaders at an alliance summit in 2023. The parties had also agreed that Stockholm would present a “roadmap” on counter-terrorism.
Sweden joined NATO in March.
“Cooperation in the field of security, especially the fight against terrorism, will be discussed within the framework of the road map,” the source said, adding that the talks aimed to pave the way for additional steps on the PKK and its Syrian offshoots, as well others.
Turkiye’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, and Stenergard will also discuss bilateral ties during the meetings, the source added.
Turkiye, Sweden to hold first security talks since NATO entry
https://arab.news/5y7t7
Turkiye, Sweden to hold first security talks since NATO entry
- The meeting will take place during a visit to Ankara by Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
