As Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership stalls due to objections by Turkey, it can embolden “potential enemies”, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told a Swedish daily.
“It sends a clear signal to our rivals and potential enemies. Some of those enemies may not be obvious yet. If this is not resolved, the situation will become very dangerous and it will give our enemies an incentive to act,” Landsbergis said in an interview with the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter on Friday.
According to the Lithuanian politician, NATO must allow Sweden and Finland to join if it wants to appear strong and send a message to “those who want to see us weak”.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland abandoned their long-standing non-alignment policy and applied to join NATO in May 2022.
However, Turkey is blocking their bid to join the alliance, accusing Sweden of giving asylum to what it considers “terrorists”, in particular members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Recent Stockholm-Ankara tensions have been fuelled by a burning of the Koran during a protest in Sweden.
However, Lithuania hopes that Sweden and Finland will already be full members of NATO when Vilnius hosts the alliance’s summit in July.
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