ANKARA, 20 May 2022, (TON): Turkey’s opposition to NATO’s decision to open accession talks with Finland and Sweden has sparked debate about concessions Ankara might extract to greenlight membership for the two Scandinavian countries the biggest change in European security architecture for decades.

Any country seeking to join NATO requires consensus approval from its 30 members, with the next NATO summit in Madrid coming in late June.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insists that Ankara, a NATO member since 1952 and possessing the alliance’s second largest military, does not support membership for Finland and Sweden, accusing both countries of harboring terror groups. 

Turkey has told allies “it will say no to Sweden and Finland’s NATO applications, Erdogan said in a video posted on his Twitter account.”

Paul Levin, director of Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies said “this move, which has poured cold water on expectations about Finland and Sweden’s ‘historic’ accession to the military alliance, was not really a surprise.”