Finnish officials are expected to visit Türkiye next Tuesday to hold technical discussions with Turkish counterparts on Ankara's extradition requests of wanted terrorists as part of a recently reached agreement on the sidelines of the former's NATO membership.
Finnish Justice Ministry officials will meet 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 will 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 for membership 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 YPG/PYD-the PKK terrorist group's Syrian offshoot-or FETÖ.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the European Union, and the U.S., and is responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants. The YPG-which also has a presence in Europe, openly sanctioned by several governments-is the terrorist PKK's Syrian branch.
The Nordic countries also agreed to address Ankara's pending deportation or extradition requests for terror suspects.
Only the parliaments of Türkiye and Hungary have yet to ratify the accession of Finland and Sweden.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday that he had also agreed to meet with Sweden’s new prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, in Ankara.
"Sweden's new prime minister requested an appointment. I told our friends to 'give an appointment.'... We will discuss these issues with him in our country," Erdoğan said on his plane back from Azerbaijan.
Kristersson said Thursday he was ready to head to Ankara to urge Türkiye to back his country's bid to join the alliance.
During his first trip abroad as Sweden's new foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom told reporters in Helsinki that the proposed meeting between Erdoğan and Kristersson was "very positive" news.
"We believe that close dialogue and close consultations with all the three parties... is the way forward," he said.
Billstrom added that there would "be a broad scope for the negotiations about the implementation" of the deal and that Sweden was expecting Türkiye to ratify the applications "in fullness of time."
Kristersson said he aimed to show the Turkish leader that Sweden and Finland "actually do what we promised" to fulfil a deal with Ankara to clear their path into NATO.
