View of Ankara. File photoANKARA, May 24.Turkey's consultations with the delegations of Sweden and Finland on NATO membership will be held on Wednesday in Ankara, RIA Novosti was told in the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Finland and Sweden, against the backdrop of events in Ukraine, submitted NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg applications for joining the alliance. The Financial Times newspaper wrote that Turkey blocked the start of the process of consideration of the application for the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara cannot say «yes» to the membership of Finland and Sweden in the alliance, because it cannot believe their assurances about relations with representatives of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey.
Ex-Prime Minister of Finland urged NATO to take into account Turkey's concerns»Consultations on Sweden's and Finland's applications for NATO membership between our delegation led by Presidential Spokesman Ambassador Ibrahim Kalin and Deputy Foreign Minister Ambassador Sedat Onal and the Swedish and Finnish delegations headed by the Secretary of State of the Office of the Prime Minister of Sweden Oskar Stenström and the Deputy Minister of Justice of Finland Jukka Salovaara will be held on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, in Ankara,» the department said. Russia has repeatedly noted that NATO is aimed at confrontation. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov stated that further expansion of the alliance would not bring greater security to Europe, NATO has an aggressive character. He noted that he did not consider the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO an existential threat to Russia. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out that abandoning Finland's traditional policy of military neutrality would be erroneous, since there are no threats to its security. Turkey did not rule out the paradoxical collapse of NATO due to its expansion
