Swedish Prime Minister calls NATO talks with Erdogan positive

Stockholm. File photo ANKARA, May 23 Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, in an interview with the Swedish official news agency TT, described earlier talks with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on NATO membership as «pleasant and positive.» Earlier, the Financial Times wrote, that Turkey has blocked the start of the process of consideration of the application for accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. Erdogan said that Ankara cannot say «yes» to the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO, because it cannot believe their assurances about relations with representatives of the Kurdistan Workers' Party banned in Turkey. If Turkey agrees, NATO, according to Erdogan, «will not be a security organization, but will become a place where there will be many representatives of terrorists.» Countries cannot be accepted into the alliance without the unanimous approval of all its members. «I had a pleasant and positive meeting with President Erdogan this weekend,» the Turkish newspaper Star quoted from an interview. Noting that she was looking forward to negotiations with Turkey, Andersson added that Sweden «is one of the first countries to list the Kurdistan Workers' Party (banned in Turkey) as a terrorist group.» Turkey carefully monitor links with the Kurdish PKK