Finland: We will not change our legislation to please Turkey
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Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto says his country will not deliver certain individuals to Turkey unless it was for very good reasons.
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Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto
Finland's Foreign Minister said on Friday that his country will not approve of making changes to its legislation and will not deliver certain individuals requested by Turkey unless there are very good reasons to do so.
In a press conference held in Helsinki following talks with his Polish counterpart, Haavisto said that "If the condition for Turkey's ratification of Finland's NATO membership is a change in our legislation, Finland is unlikely to make such concessions."
According to the Finnish FM, the Memorandum of Understanding between Turkey, Sweden, and Finland does not say anything about changes in legislation or anything of a sort, nor did Finland make such commitments.
He further added that everything that was agreed upon was put to paper. Different points of view may be expressed, but nothing was agreed upon that was not written in the MoU.
Haavisto said Helsinki may concede to Turkey's demands of delivering persons it itself considers terrorists, and only if there is evidence to substantiate these claims.
The Finnish Foreign Minister further added that he understands that Kurds living in Finland and Sweden are concerned, but when the matter concerns criminals, then the crime of terrorism would have to be one that was proven in Finland as well. In addition, Finland has also refused to hand over people that may be tortured or executed.
Turkey announced on Wednesday that it would seek the extradition of 33 alleged Kurdish militants and "coup plot" suspects from Sweden and Finland as part of an agreement to secure Ankara's support for the Nordic countries' NATO membership bids.
Following crunch talks ahead of Wednesday's NATO summit in Madrid, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped weeks of opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
Erdogan declared victory after securing a 10-point agreement in which the two countries agreed to join Turkey's "fight against banned Kurdish militants and to quickly extradite suspects."
