Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted this Sunday, January 29 that Turkey could approve Finland’s candidacy for NATO, without doing the same for Sweden.

2023, the year of all dangers for Turkish President Erdogan

“If necessary, we can give a different message regarding Finland. Sweden will be shocked when we give a different message about Finland”said the Turkish head of state in response to a question on the candidacy of two Nordic countries to NATO during a televised meeting with young people.

Ankara thus lets for the first time hear to be ready to treat the candidature of Finland separately from that of Sweden. Turkey had put a stop to the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO on Tuesday, postponing indefinitely a tripartite meeting initially scheduled for early February and intended to remove Ankara’s objections to their candidacy.

“You must send these terrorists back”

The Turkish president warned on Monday that Sweden, already accused by Turkey of harboring “terrorists” Kurds, could no longer count on the ” support “ from Ankara, after a far-right activist burned a copy of the Koran in Stockholm.

Without mentioning this incident, the Turkish president however reiterated his reproaches against Sweden regarding Turkey’s extradition requests. “We told them: If you want to join NATO, you have to send these terrorists back to us. We gave them a list of 120 people (…) But they are laughing at us saying that they have changed their Constitution”he said.

Between kyiv and Moscow, “Erdogan is playing a winning balancing act”

The burning of a Quran by an anti-Islam right-wing extremist last week near the Turkish embassy in Sweden sparked strong protests from Ankara and several capitals of the Muslim world.

Ankara had already canceled an announced visit by the Swedish Minister of Defense. Stockholm lamented an act “deeply disrespectful” and expressed his ” sympathy “ Muslims by pointing out that the Swedish Constitution prevented the prohibition of this type of action, without however extinguishing Turkish anger.

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