Finnish officials arrived in Türkiye on Tuesday to hold technical discussions with Turkish counterparts on Ankara's extradition requests for wanted terrorists as part of a recently reached agreement on the Nordic country's NATO membership.
Finnish Justice Ministry officials met in the capital Ankara with a delegation headed by Kasım Çiçek, the director general of Foreign Relations and the European Union at the Turkish Justice Ministry.
During the meeting, Turkish officials are expected reiterate their request to the Finnish delegation to extradite members of two terrorist groups, the PKK and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the latter the group behind the 2016 defeated coup in Türkiye. Evidence of the accused terrorists' crimes will also be laid out in documents.
Both Finland and its neighbor Sweden applied to become members of the defense alliance in the wake of Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, abandoning longstanding policies of military nonalignment. Becoming a NATO member requires the unanimous support of all current members, including Türkiye.
However, Türkiye, a NATO member for over 70 years, voiced objections to the membership bids, criticizing the two countries for tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups.
The three countries signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding at NATO's June summit in Madrid, which stipulates that Finland and Sweden will not provide support to the PKK terrorist group's Syrian offshoots (the YPG/PYD) or FETÖ.
Only the parliaments of Türkiye and Hungary have yet to ratify the accession of Finland and Sweden.
A day earlier, Parliament Speaker Mustafa Şentop came together with Speaker of the Swedish Parliament Andreas Norlen and with Deputy Speaker of the Finnish Parliament Antti Rinne in Zagreb ahead of the Crimea Platform summit.
Welcoming the recent constructive statements by Sweden’s new Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Şentop said the fact that Kristersson aims to visit Türkiye as one of his first visits abroad since being elected shows the country’s decisiveness on the issue.
"During the approval process, our assembly will act by evaluating whether the commitments in the tripartite memorandum are fully fulfilled. Our public and parliamentarians closely follow the fulfillment of the commitments in the Tripartite Memorandum," he said, indicating that Türkiye believes that these commitments have not been fulfilled yet.
"We observe that the PKK, PYD/YPG and FETÖ continue their anti-Türkiye activities as before. In the current environment, it is not possible for us to convince the public that the articles of the memorandum are implemented. We expect that both countries put an end to the activities of terrorist organizations and their extensions."
In addition, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said that Finland and Sweden have to keep their promises to extradite terrorists if they want to join NATO.
"If they want to join NATO right now, they have to keep their word. Our statements are very clear: 'Fulfill your promises, and we will complete your NATO entry process,'" Bozdağ told reporters Monday after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara.
On the Turkish Parliament ratifying the country's NATO membership, Bozdağ said: "The process was started but not completed. Completion will be with the approval of the Parliament ... Parliament will make the final decision."
Meanwhile, Sweden's center-right government will fulfill all requirements, the country's top diplomat said Monday.
Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said the new government shares Ankara’s concern about the PKK.
"There will be no nonsense from the Swedish government when it comes to the PKK," Billström told the Associated Press (AP) in an interview. "We are fully behind a policy which means that terrorist organizations don’t have a right to function on Swedish territory."
"Everything which is written into the trilateral memorandum, and which has been agreed upon by all three parties, should be fulfilled, needs to be fulfilled by all the three parties," Billström said, adding that "everything also has to be done in a legally safe way."