A surprising breakthrough: Finland’s Foreign Minister takes Euronews inside the NATO dea

 A surprising breakthrough: Finland’s Foreign Minister takes Euronews inside the NATO deal

By Euronews Brussels bureau

When Pekka Haavisto, Finland’s foreign affairs minister, arrived in Madrid for a crucial NATO summit, his expectations were low. He had flown to the Spanish capital together with his Swedish counterparts in a bid to convince Turkey to drop its veto, which had so far blocked the accession of the Nordic countries to the Transatlantic alliance.

A deal was required to break the impasse.

“Our own expectations were quite low. We had seen how difficult it is to formulate the text. We [spent] four hours with Turkish President Erdoğan, with the Swedish delegation, NATO's secretary general. Many kinds of formulations were at the table,” Haavisto (pictured above seated in the middle) told our colleague Efi Koutsokosta during the summit.

“And then there was this kind of decisive coffee break that sometimes happens after two hours. You know, you go for coffee and then during a coffee break, some new ideas of the text [emerge], which then would please everyone in the room. And that was the breakthrough.”

“We were ourselves surprised,” he admitted. 

Ankara had insisted that both Finland and Sweden end their support for the People Defence’s Unit, known as YPG, a militia made mainly of Kurdish fighters stationed in Syria.

While several NATO member states, including the United States, have relied on the YPG to fight the Islamic State group, Erdoğan sees it as a terrorist group alligned with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and demands the extradition of its members who have sought refuge in Finland and Sweden.

“We don't have any state support for the YPG,” Haavisto said.

In the final compromise, Finland and Sweden commit to process Turkey’s “pending deportation of extradition requests of terror suspects expeditiously,” a vaguely worded pledge that has raised fears the Nordic countries gave in too much.

But the minister said this was not the case and all files will be subject to strict EU law standards.

“We are not changing our legislation in Finland. Sweden is not changing its legislation. We agreed on some cooperation between our authorities, but we are following our own laws regarding human rights,” he said.

“I do not think this kind of enhanced cooperation between the authorities is a bad thing. We will become members of the same military alliance. We can live with the whole text.”

However, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has already said Ankara is seeking 12 suspects from Finland. Asked about this number, which was not specified in the agreement, Haavisto was categorical: “We haven’t seen any new lists,” he said. “We don't have any open requests.”

“Turkey is particularly concerned about the PKK as an organisation and both Finland and Sweden already have PKK under counterterrorist listings,” he added. “Of course, we can enhance our outlook of cooperation between our authorities on terrorism.”

For Haavisto, the deal signed in Madrid heralds a new era for his country, which until now had a long tradition of military non-alignment that was turned upside down by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Does Finland fear a similar incursion from his huge neighbour?

“Our citizens feel quite safe,” Haavisto said. “We have a 1,300-kilometre common border with Russia. And of course, our aim is to keep that border peaceful as it has been.”

ALSO IN MADRID Efi caught up with Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s Foreign Affairs Minister, who discussed the ongoing standoff between Vilnius and Moscow over Kaliningrad. Read the interview.