Turkey Will Not Approve Sweden and Finland's NATO Membership, Erdoğan Says

Turkey cannot say "yes" to the NATO membership applications of Finland and Sweden, it is impossible, so they should not take offense. This was stated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, according to Kommersant.

As the media outlet reports, Erdoğan also noted: “The delegations of Sweden and Finland should not bother coming to Turkey to convince Ankara to approve their NATO membership applications.”

On May 15, the authorities of Sweden and Finland confirmed their decision to join NATO and announced the start of the process to prepare their applications to the alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the membership of these countries in NATO does not pose an immediate threat to Russia due to the absence of problems in relations with Finland or Sweden. However, he remarked that the very fact of NATO's expansion will elicit a response from the Russian Federation.