Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan already expressed his displeasure at the burning of the Koran in Sweden on Monday (reported by eXXpress). Today, on Tuesday, the Turkish head of state canceled a planned meeting to discuss NATO’s northern expansion. Officially, no reasons have been given for this, but the scandal by Swedish right-wing extremists seems to have only strengthened Erdoğan’s already skeptical attitude towards NATO’s northern expansion.
A new interview date was not announced. When two people quarrel, as in the case of Turkey and Sweden, the third party is happy, and that is Russia. For the time being, Putin does not need to take any precautions with regard to Russia’s northern borders, because Finland and Sweden are unlikely to join NATO any time soon. Insiders suspect that Erdoğan wants to wait out the Turkish elections in May until new negotiations are started.
