(MENAFN- Trend News Agency)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 27 he's
confident Turkey's objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO
can be overcome swiftly, possibly in time for a summit of alliance
leaders at the end of next month, Trend reports citing Hurriyet Daily
News .
At a news conference in Washington with visiting Finnish Foreign
Minister Pekka Haavisto, Blinken said the U.S. has no reason to
believe Turkey's concerns cannot be addressed. His comments came
after Turkey's top diplomat said Finland and Sweden would have to
take“concrete steps” before Ankara could support their
membership.
“The United States fully supports Finland and Sweden joining the
alliance and I continue to be confident that both will soon be NATO
members,” Blinken said. 'We look forward to being able to call
Finland and Sweden our allies.'
Haavisto said his country and Sweden had held“good
negotiations” with the Turks over their concerns in recent days and
said those discussions would continue with an eye toward resolving
them before the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June.
“We agreed to continue to those talks,” Haavisto said.“We think
that these problems can be solved that Turkey has been raising. We
hope that some results could be achieved before the NATO
summit.”
Tags:
- Turkey
- NATO
- US
- Sweden
- Finland
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