Erdogan open to talks with Swedish leader on Nato bid

Bloomberg

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he is willing to meet Sweden’s leader to discuss the Nordic country’s bid to join Nato.
Erdogan said he instructed his staff to respond positively to a request from Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for talks. “We will discuss these topics with him in our country,” state-run Anadolu Agency cited Erdogan as telling journalists on Thursday.
Turkey and Hungary remain the only two North Atlantic Treaty Organization members that haven’t ratified applications by Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance. Their bids, which were triggered by security concerns arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, require unanimous consent and so need approval from Turkey’s parliament.
Erdogan reiterated Turkey’s condition that Sweden fully addresses its security concerns, including the extradition of suspects it sees as terrorists. They include members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK, and its affiliates in Syria. Turkey, the EU and the US have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.
“They need to catch and hand back these terrorists who have been given penal sanctions,” Erdogan said. “As long as they are not given to us,” their application to join Nato won’t move ahead in parliament, he said.
The meeting with Kristersson will test how “sincere” Sweden is about its counter-terrorism efforts, the president said.