MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th July, 2023) The foreign ministers of Turkey, Sweden and Finland will meet in Brussels on July 6 ahead of the top-level NATO summit as Ankara continues to keep Stockholm's membership application vetoed, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said on Wednesday.
"Will participate tomorrow at Turkey-Sweden-Finland Foreign Ministers' meeting in Brussels, invited by NATO ��(Secretary General) Jens Stoltenberg," Valtonen said on Twitter.
Valtonen added that earlier in the day, she held a phone conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
The meeting of NATO leaders will take place in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius from next Tuesday to Wednesday.
Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022, several months after Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine. Their membership bids were initially blocked by Turkey, which accused Stockholm and Helsinki of supporting "terrorists," referring to supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Ankara considers a terrorist organization. Turkey lifted its objections after the three leaders met in Madrid in June 2022, where they signed a security memorandum that cleared the way for the two Nordic countries to join the alliance.
In April, Finland's application was ratified by all 30 members of the alliance. Sweden's application is still pending approval by Hungary and Turkey, with the accession process stalled in part due to two controversial Quran-burning demonstrations in Stockholm. The latest took place last Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, when a copy of the Quran was burned outside Stockholm's main mosque in a demonstration authorized by the police.
