OUR Washington strongly supports its rapid accession Sweden And her Finland in NATO, given the steps already taken, the US Secretary of State said.

OUR Anthony Blinken he raised the issue in the context of his visit to Ankara, where he had one-on-one meetings with Erdogan and Cavusoglu.

Recall that Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey.

Ankara claims that members of terrorist groups, as the Turkish government calls them, are hiding in Stockholm. Turkey recently announced that it would only approve Finland’s candidacy.

“Finland and Sweden have already taken concrete steps to fulfill their obligations under the trilateral memorandum of understanding they signed,” Blinken said.

Stressing that the issue of NATO expansion into the Nordic countries is not bilateral with Turkey, the US official said that the US is strongly in favor of Sweden and Finland joining the alliance.As soon as possible“.

However, the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglucountered that all parties in the alliance should convince Sweden to take additional steps to resolve Ankara’s problems and win her support for the bid.

When asked whether Ankara would approve their entry to the NATO summit to be held in July in LithuaniaCavusoglu said that Stockholm needs it makes more.

“Sweden has changed its law, but we see that all activities, including terrorist financing, recruitment and propaganda, continue,” he said, adding: “If they take steps that convince our parliament and our people, they are in progress can be made in this direction.

Cavusoglu added that the interrupted negotiations with Sweden and Finland regarding their accession to NATO they will resume “soon” in Brussels.

Turkey indefinitely canceled one tripartite mechanism with Sweden and Finland regarding their applications for NATO membership, since Rasmus Paludanleader of a Danish far-right political party hard lineburned a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm in January.

“Of course, I welcome Turkey’s announcement that it wants to resume discussions on trilateral agreements,” the prime minister said. Ulf Christersonat a press conference in Stockholm.

Kristerson noted that no date had been set for the resumption of talks, but stressed that he was confident that soon V Sweden joins NATO.

Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a tougher stance on PKK (PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist group.

In January Erdogan he stated that he was only open to the Helsinki application.

After negotiations with Cavusoglu, Blinken held an hour-long meeting with him Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara..