NATO diplomats are scrambling to solve last-minute problems leading up to the summit set for July 11 and 12, in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.<\/p>\n
And many of those problems deal with Turkey\u2019s participation in the defense block. For one, there was a frenzy to try to have Turkey\u2019s leader Erdogan to change his mind and greenlight Sweden\u2019s bid. It would be an embarrassment if they miss their stated target of having Stockholm join by the next summit.<\/p>\n
But Turkey has additional demands that threaten to hold up the launch of NATO\u2019s new defense strategy, said to be \u2018the most ambitious overhaul to be drafted since the end of the Cold War\u2019.<\/p>\n
Al Monitor<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cWith two weeks left before\u00a0<\/em>NATO<\/a><\/em>\u2018s forthcoming summit in Vilnius next month, Al-Monitor has learned Turkey is upping its demands for the alliance\u2019s defense strategy, requesting that critical waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Aegean be referred to as the \u2018Turkish Straits\u2019 rather than the \u2018Straits\u2019.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also continues to pressure\u00a0Sweden\u00a0to crack down on alleged Kurdish terrorist sympathizers as a precondition for ratifying the Nordic country\u2019s addition to the alliance.<\/em><\/p>\n In a phone call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday, Erdogan said that Ankara was engaging constructively with Sweden but that the latter\u2019s stiffening of its anti-terror legislation was \u2018meaningless\u2019 so long as supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party and its Syrian affiliates were permitted to stage demonstrations against Turkey in the Swedish capital.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n A high-level Turkish delegation was initially scheduled to meet with their Swedish counterparts, but events today in Stockholm may have thrown a spanner in the works.<\/p>\n Telegraph<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n \u201cA man tore up and burned a copy of the Koran outside Stockholm\u2019s main mosque on Wednesday in a move that angered Turkey and dented the Nordic nation\u2019s Nato aspirations.<\/em><\/p>\n Salwan Momika\u2019s demonstration coincided with the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and drew an immediate rebuke from Ankara, which has\u00a0blocked Sweden\u2019s ascension\u00a0to the transatlantic security alliance over alleged security concerns.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n While it was a two-person demonstration and it only gathered about 200 people to witness or counterprotest, the potential damage to the Turkish-Swedish relationship is evident.<\/p>\n \u201cPrior to the protest, Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister, said he would not speculate on how it could affect his country\u2019s Nato membership bid, which was launched in response to Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s legal but not appropriate\u2019, he said, adding that it was up to the police to make decisions on Koran burnings.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Turkey initially suspended NATO talks with Sweden in January, after a anti-immigration political party torched a copy of the Koran\u00a0near the Turkish embassy, in Stockholm.<\/p>\n This time, the reaction was also immediate.<\/p>\n CNN<\/a> repoted:<\/p>\n \u201cTurkey condemned a decision by Swedish authorities to approve a small Quran-burning demonstration outside a mosque in Stockholm on Wednesday, a move that may\u00a0jeopardize Sweden\u2019s bid to join NATO\u00a0before the bloc\u2019s key summit in July.<\/em><\/p>\n [\u2026] The decision to permit the protest was made in accordance with the right of freedom of speech, Swedish police said, adding that the demonstration does not pose an immediate security risk.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan:<\/p>\n \u201cIt is unacceptable to allow these anti-Islamic actions under the pretext of freedom of expression. To turn a blind eye to such heinous acts is to be complicit in them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The post Turkey Is Impeding New NATO Defense Strategy, Vetoing Sweden\u2019s Entrance Into the Military Alliance \u2013 Today\u2019s Koran Burning in Stockholm Complicates Scandinavian\u2019s Bid<\/a> appeared first on The Gateway Pundit<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NATO diplomats are scrambling to solve last-minute problems leading up to the summit set for July 11 and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n