Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Reuters
Reuters
Politics

Turkey cancels trilateral Sweden-Finland meet after protest -state TV

FILE PHOTO: A Turkish flag flies next to NATO logo at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, November 26, 2019. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo

Turkey has cancelled indefinitely a trilateral mechanism meeting with Sweden and Finland scheduled for February after a weekend protest in Stockholm that drew condemnation from Ankara, state broadcaster TRT reported on Tuesday.

The meeting that was to take place in Brussels in February was postponed at Ankara's request, TRT said citing Turkish diplomatic sources. Erdogan's spokesman said earlier this month that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was to also attend.

A source at the Turkish presidency said Turkey had not cancelled the meeting, but postponed it. The source did not specify when the meeting was postponed to.

The presidency declined to provide on-record comment about the postponement.

On Monday, President Tayyip Erdogan said that Sweden should not expect Turkey's support for its NATO membership after a protest near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm at the weekend including the burning of a copy of the Koran.

Sweden and Finland applied last year to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after Russia invaded Ukraine, and now needs the backing of all current NATO states to advance their application.

(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever and Orhan Coskun; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.