Turkey has recently stepped up its public diplomacy efforts to better explain its position on the NATO membership bids of Sweden and Finland, which Ankara opposed due to the Nordic countries’ support for terrorism.
After President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said last month that the country does not currently have "a positive position" on the issue of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, Turkey’s Directorate of Communications launched a campaign reflecting Ankara's stance against the support that these nations provide to terrorist organizations.
As part of this campaign, Communications Director Fahrettin Altun publicly defended this stance in interviews with the most prominent newspapers of Sweden and Finland, urging the two countries to change course on their approach toward the issue of terrorism.
Altun said that if Ankara’s legitimate concerns are not addressed, it could not allow these two countries to join NATO.
Russia's war on Ukraine prompted Finland and Sweden to formally apply to join NATO on May 18.
But Turkey, a longstanding member of the alliance, has voiced objections to their membership bids, criticizing the countries for tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups such as the PKK and its Syrian wing YPG, as well as for weapons embargos against Turkey.
While the two Nordic countries have said talks would continue to resolve the dispute, President Erdoğan said last week that Ankara had not received any responses to its demands, including stopping support for groups Turkey considers terrorists, lifting arms embargoes on Ankara and extraditing suspects it seeks.
Any bid to join NATO requires backing from each of its 30 members.
Also part of this effort, the Directorate of Communications is preparing to hold a panel in Brussels later this week to discuss "the future of NATO after the war in Ukraine."
The panel, scheduled for Friday, will serve as another opportunity for Turkey to raise awareness of the reasons behind its objections to using public diplomacy.
The directorate will hold another panel in Madrid on June 28 with the same intention ahead of a NATO summit in Spain that Erdoğan is to attend on June 28-30.
