Diplomats of Turkey, Sweden and Finland meet to follow up on deal

Foreign ministers of Finland, Sweden and Turkey met on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest on Tuesday to review steps taken in the context of a trilateral deal that outlines Turkey's conditions to give green light to the two Nordic countries' accession to NATO.

Sweden is on track to meet Turkey's requirements for accepting it and Finland as new members of NATO, Sweden's foreign minister Tobias Billstrom said before the meeting.

"We are on a steady path to meet Turkey's conditions," he added, expressing his hope that talks with Turkey and Finland later in the day will help speed the process.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier said on Monday that Sweden and Finland are yet to take "concrete steps," and that Sweden is the country that needs to take more steps.

When asked on 8 November by a Swedish journalist which undertakings in the deal according to him were yet unfulfilled by Sweden, and how many people has Ankara wanted the Swedish government to hand over, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had not elaborated.

Trilateral deal

In the context of the deal signed in June, Turkey agreed to ratify Sweden's and Finland's accession provided that the two governments crackdown on Kurdish political activists allegedly affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and hand them over to Turkey, that they do not support the Kurdish militia People's Defense Units (YPG) in Northern Syria, and that Stockholm lifts arms embargoes imposed on Turkey following the latter's invasion of Syrian territories in 2019.