Turkey has indefinitely postponed a new round of talks with Sweden and Finland on the NATO club programs of the Nordic neighbors following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, according to Turkish state television.
The assembly that was to take place in Brussels was postponed at Ankara’s request, the public broadcaster said on Tuesday. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will also attend talks planned for next month.
Turkey’s resolution came a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Sweden that he would not accept its bid to join the U. S. -western-led defense alliance after a far-right Swedish leader set fire to the Koran over the weekend.
The NATO club’s offers must be ratified by all members of the alliance, of which Turkey is a member.
Swedish-Turkish relations have been strained recently and Ankara has been outraged by the burning of the Koran in front of its embassy in Stockholm.
The protest was approved by the Swedish authorities, despite strong objections from Turkey.
Erdogan’s comments and Tuesday’s postponement reduce customers from Sweden and Finland to join the bloc ahead of Turkey’s parliamentary and presidential elections in May.
Finland first hinted on Tuesday that it could join NATO without Sweden because of Stockholm’s diplomatic unrest with Ankara.
Biden’s administration reiterated Tuesday that it supports Finland and Sweden joining NATO as soon as possible.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told a news conference he would not talk about Finland’s imaginable club without Sweden after the Turkish president said Sweden does not deserve to expect his country’s support.
Previous rounds of NATO tripartite talks brought together Foreign Ministry officials and focused on an express list of Turkish demands, which come with the deportation of dozens of suspects, mostly Kurds.
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members to have ratified the Nordic neighbors’ historic resolve to break their culture of military non-alignment in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has vowed that his parliament will approve either next month.