Expert outlines why Turkey opposes Sweden membership in NATO

“Ankara seeks to condition the approval of Sweden's NATO membership. Turkey has raised the issue of the extradition of the leaders and elements of Kurdish groups based in Sweden, and on the other hand, they are looking to benefit from American aid in the fight against terrorism,” Ghaem Maghami said in an exclusive interview with ILNA.

He added, “At the same time, Russia is very sensitive about the membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO, and the officials of the Russian Foreign Ministry have recently reacted in this regard. Note that in order to get rid of the pressure of this case, Erdogan submitted it to the Turkish Parliament.”

According to the expert, the U.S. and NATO want Turkey to end its opposition to Sweden's membership in NATO by the end of this year.

Underlining that Erdogan is under pressure and economic problems, he said, “For this reason, by confirming Sweden's membership in NATO, Turkey wants to attract U.S. investments to the amount of 100 billion dollars, which includes commercial exchanges of both sides.”

According to Ghaem Maghami, the Turkish president has announced that one of his conditions for accepting Sweden's membership in NATO is to put American pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza.