Anne Kauranen and Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA/HELSINKI -Finland or Sweden must change their laws if they want to comply with Turkey’s demands. The Turkish foreign minister stated Tuesday that he was doubling down on his threats to veto historic enlargements of NATO.

Turkey on May 13, shocked allies by its opposition to Finland joining NATO. The reason was that Finland and Sweden harbour terrorist groups, such as the Kurdistan Workers Party, and they have stopped arms exports to Turkey for 2019. After Russia invaded Ukraine, the Nordic countries applied for NATO membership.

Any plans for enlargement must be approved by all 30 NATO member countries.

Mevlut Causoglu claimed that Turkey is a NATO Member for over seventy years and it would not lift the veto unless Turkey’s demands were fulfilled, echoing President Tayyip Erdogan’s comments.

Ankara stated that Finland and Sweden must stop supporting the PKK or other terrorist groups. They also need to ban them from organizing any events in their territory.

Finland and Sweden sought to find a solution. The other NATO capitals said that they are confident the Turkey-based objections can be addressed.

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Cavusoglu claimed that Turkey presented documents detailing the needs of visiting Swedish and Finnish delegations during the talks in Ankara last Thursday and that it was now awaiting their reply.

“Are our demands impossible? No. “We want them to stop their support for terror,” Cavusoglu said to the Anadolu state news agency. He added that Ankara knew some of its demands would need laws to be changed.

They put it like this: “Because we’re far from terrorist areas, our laws were designed that way.” You need to modify them, he stated. “They claim that it is permissible to terrorist organizations to organize events and flaunt their rags. “Then, you need to modify your law.”

The Nordic nations have stated that they reject terrorism and are open for dialogue.

Cavusoglu claimed that NATO Secretary-General Jens Steltenberg was actively working on this issue. He had suggested having talks in Brussels with the three countries. But Ankara stated there was no need to hold such talks before Stockholm had responded and Helsinki had complied.

He said, “It is important that we have concrete items to discuss.”

Fahrettin Altun, Erdogan’s communications director, told Finland’s biggest daily Helsingin Sanomat earlier that Finland should take Turkey’s concerns seriously.

He said that Finland’s government would eventually have to decide whether to protect or join NATO.