“President Erdoğan’s summit with Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö, Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg achieved concrete, specific and significant results regarding our concerns over terrorism,” Fahrettin Altun noted.
Altun stressed that all sides agreed to cooperate against the terror organisation PKK and all its extensions and noted, “President Erdoğan’s summit with Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö, Sweden’s Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg achieved concrete, specific and significant results regarding our concerns over terrorism. All sides agreed to full cooperation against the terror organization PKK and all its extensions.”
Altun indicated that Sweden and Finland have committed to stand with Türkiye against all forms of terrorism and promised not to provide support to the PYD/YPG and FETO terror groups, adding:
“They also agreed not to impose restrictions or sanctions on our defense industry and increase cooperation in this arena. They have committed to revise counter-terrorism laws to address our concerns regarding terror activities cloaked under pseudo political activities. We have agreed to create an intelligence sharing and cooperation mechanism against terrorism and organized crime. We also agreed on taking concrete steps and creating bilateral arrangements on the extradition of individuals convicted of terrorism. Sweden and Finland agreed to ban any fundraising and recruitment activities by the PKK and its extensions as well as shell organizations. They also agreed to prevent terrorism propaganda against Türkiye. We have agreed to support the inclusion of Finland and Sweden in the EU Permanent Structured Cooperation Process (PESCO) to the broadest extent possible. We will also create a Permanent Shared Mechanism to oversee and verify the implementation of these steps with the participation of justice, intelligence, and security bureaucracies of our respective countries.”
Stating that Türkiye achieved significant gains in its fight against terror groups thanks to the determined stance of President Erdoğan, Altun added that the inclusion of FETO as a terror organisation alongside the PKK/YPG/PYD is a clear victory for their struggle against international terror.
“We have always supported a stronger NATO and will continue to do so”
Altun said that the Turkish government would be working closely with the Finnish and Swedish counterparts to implement this agreement and continued:
“We are satisfied with their constructive approach to address our concerns. We will work to ensure that NATO has more unity on terrorism. Türkiye has always advocated for more unity within our alliance over common security issues, including terrorism. We will neither create fractures within this alliance nor give up on our national security. We have always supported a stronger NATO and will continue to do so. President Erdoğan has met with President of the European Council Charles Michel, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the US President Joe Biden. He will continue to hold meetings with NATO leaders throughout this summit. During this summit, our President Erdoğan has been clearly laying out Türkiye’s expectations from our NATO allies on the fight against international terrorism. His persistent approach on this issue will continue today and in the future in our common fight against terrorism.” (ILKHA)