{"id":16133,"date":"2023-06-26T12:03:15","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T09:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=16133"},"modified":"2023-06-26T12:03:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T09:03:21","slug":"nato-chief-and-turkish-president-discuss-swedens-inclusion-in-military-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/nato-chief-and-turkish-president-discuss-swedens-inclusion-in-military-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO Chief and Turkish President discuss Sweden\u2019s inclusion in military alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 25, 2023. The two discussed the latest developments in Russia and Sweden\u2019s bid to join the NATO alliance.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erdogan told Stoltenberg that Turkey has a \u201cconstructive attitude\u201d toward Sweden\u2019s inclusion into the alliance but Stockholm must meet Ankara\u2019s demands to address the issues related to the activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Sweden, an organization that Turkey considers as a terrorist group and wants a tougher stance toward pro-Kurdish activists and members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a readout of the phone call released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Erdogan said that \u201cTurkey maintains its constructive stance regarding Sweden\u2019s membership but that legislative amendments would be meaningless so long as PKK\/PYD\/YPG supporters organize demonstrations freely in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stoltenberg tweeted about his telephonic conversation with the Turkish President, saying that he had a \u201cgood call<\/span><\/a>\u201d with Erdogan as a run-up to the upcoming NATO Summit, where \u201cimportant decisions on terrorism, deterrence, and defense\u201d will be taken.\u00a0The NATO<\/span><\/a> chief added that \u201cWe will continue working together on Sweden\u2019s accession to NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
NATO Secretary General hosts a meeting of senior officials from Turkiye, Finland, and Sweden at NATO headquarters in Brussels. (Image Credit: NATO)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In March 2023, senior officials of Turkiye, Sweden, and Finland met at NATO headquarters in Brussels to discuss Nordic nations\u2019 NATO accession. A month later, Finland officially became the 31st member of NATO<\/span><\/a>, the world\u2019s largest military alliance as the Nordic country\u2019s flag was raised at NATO\u2019s headquarters in Brussels alongside its Western partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erdogan and Stoltenberg discuss<\/strong> developments in Russia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Turkish President and the NATO chief also spoke about the ongoing situation in Russia. During the call, Erdogan told Stoltenberg that Turkey hopes recent developments in Russia will be \u201ca new milestone in the path to a just peace in Ukraine.\u201d He said that the end of tensions between the Russian administration and the Wagner Group \u201cprevented the occurrence of irrevocable humanitarian tragedies in the Ukrainian field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 23, 2023, Russia\u2019s largest private military, the Wagner group, staged an apparently armed uprising against the Kremlin<\/span><\/a> by sending an armored convoy towards Moscow after raising questions about Vladimir Putin\u2019s grip on power. The move faced a severe backlash from Russian President Putin who vowed to crush the rebellion and punish the culprit behind it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wagner\u2019s backdown came after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko intervened in the situation and negotiated a deal between the Wagner Group and Kremlin. After negotiations, Wagner chief Yevgeny\u00a0Prigozhin agreed to live in exile in Belarus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

F-16 jet deal and Sweden\u2019s bid to join NATO<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, during his call with Stoltenberg, Turkish President Erdogan also highlighted that his country has faced injustices in the context of the F-35 deal<\/span><\/a>. He also said that the U.S.\u2019s attempt to associate Sweden\u2019s NATO membership with Turkey\u2019s bid to acquire the F-16 fighter jets would only \u201charm NATO and its security rather than T\u00fcrkiye\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. had denied Turkey\u2019s inclusion in its F-35 program after the fellow NATO member state purchased the Russian S-400 air defense system. Despite the rocky relations, the discussion of a possible F-16 deal emerged between the U.S. and Turkey as an attempt to bolster NATO defense and interoperability against the backdrop of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden Administration expressed its support for the sale of the new F-16 jets to Turkey, however, the U.S. Congress blocked the $20 billion sale of jets after Turkey raised objections over Sweden\u2019s accession to NATO.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a call with Erdogan last month, U.S. President Joe Biden spoke about Turkey\u2019s interest in buying the F-16<\/span><\/a> fighter jets, while pushing Ankara to abandon its position on Sweden\u2019s inclusion in the NATO alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
F-16 Block 70 fighter jet at Lockheed Martin Greenville, South Carolina site. (Image Credit: Lockheed Martin)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a phone call with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 25, 2023. The two discussed the latest developments in Russia and Sweden\u2019s bid to join the NATO alliance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1],"tags":[6,357,316,59,89,20,113,213,82,540],"class_list":["post-16133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-defense","tag-europe","tag-kurdish","tag-nato","tag-pkk","tag-russia","tag-security","tag-sweden","tag-turkey","tag-turkiye"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Erdogan-with-NATO-chief.jpeg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-4cd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16137,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16133\/revisions\/16137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}