Turkey has told allies that it will reject Sweden and Finland's membership to NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a video posted on his Twitter account on Thursday.
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Finland and Sweden formally applied on Wednesday to join US-led NATO, a decision spurred by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Turkey's objections have come as a surprise to the other members of the alliance.
The Turkish president said Sweden and Finland harbor and finance "terrorists" and supply them with weapons, repeating Ankara's accusation that the countries support groups that it deems terrorists, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and Syrian Kurdish YPG, which it also views as a terrorist group closely tied to the PKK.
"NATO is a security alliance and we cannot accept terrorists to be in it," Erdogan said.
