Thursday

1st Jun 2023

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Turkey strong-arms Finland and Sweden on extraditions

Turkey has blocked starting Nato accession talks with Finland and Sweden after the Nordic states' ambassadors handed over formal application letters Wednesday, saying they must first extradite 33 Kurdish separatists it calls terrorists. "So you won't give us back terrorists but you ask us for Nato membership?", Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said. "Nato expansion is only meaningful for us in proportion to the respect shown to our sensitivities".

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