Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Türkiye has noted Finland's efforts to join NATO and has decided to initiate the approval process of the country's accession to NATO.
At a joint press conference in Ankara with President Sauli Niinistö of Finland, Erdoğan stated that based on the recent significant progress Finland has made towards joining NATO and the concrete steps taken to fulfil their commitments, they have decided to initiate the approval process of Finland’s NATO accession protocol in the Parliament.
Erdoğan stated that they requested the extradition of 120 "terrorists" from Sweden, but this request was not met, and thus no progress was made in approving Sweden's NATO membership.
Sauli Niinistö stated that he was pleased with Erdoğan's decision. In addition, Niinistö noted that Finland's NATO membership would be incomplete without Sweden's accession.
The Swedish Ambassador to Ankara was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to recent anti-Türkiye demonstrations in Sweden.
Erdoğan stated that Türkiye favours Finland's NATO membership, whereas the same does not apply for Sweden.