Swedish PM: "We cannot fulfill all conditions of Turkey"

Sweden's prime minister said on Sunday that they cannot fulfill all the conditions Ankara has set in exchange for its support for Sweden's accession to NATO, expressing his confidence that the Turkish administration will nevertheless approve Stockholm's application to join the military alliance.

"Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defense think-tank conference in Sweden.

"We are convinced that Turkey will make a decision, we just don't know when," he said, adding that "the decision is in Turkey's camp."

Sweden, Finland and Turkey earlier signed a trilateral deal in 2022 by which Ankara agrees to give green light to the two countries' accession to NATO, provided that they crack down on Kurdish political activists allegedly affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and hand them over to Turkish authorities, that they stop providing support for the Kurdish-led militia in Northern Syria, and that they end embargoes on arms exports to Turkey that were launched when the latter occupied parts of Syria in 2019.

A recent poll in Sweden showed that 79% of the participants believe Sweden should continue to abide by its laws in the face of Turkish demands even if it means delaying its NATO accession, while only 10% said the country should seek to join as soon as possible regardless of whether that involves legal concessions.