Two Hours of Repeating the Same Phrases: Finland's Foreign Minister on Negotiations with Turkey

In the negotiations with Turkey to resolve disagreements over NATO membership for Finland and Sweden, a pivotal moment occurred during a coffee break. This was stated by Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

According to him, the agreement signed with Ankara has been successful. “We have been negotiating for a long time, and there were many variations of the text. We negotiated in Ankara and had several meetings in Brussels. Honestly, I did not expect that we would be able to resolve this (at the NATO summit) in Madrid because there were many outstanding issues. Probably, the coffee break was a turning point. The parties sat for two hours repeating the same phrases, but during the coffee break, we found creative ideas and were able to change the text to find a common solution,” the minister noted, adding that the parties repeatedly expressed the same sentiments for two hours, but found inventive concepts during the coffee break.

It is worth noting that a few days ago, it became known that Turkey had withdrawn its objections regarding NATO invitations to Sweden and Finland. Next, the parties must agree on the terms of membership. Sweden and Finland will become NATO members when all member states' parliaments ratify this decision.