“This, of course, will influence, as the Russian leadership has repeatedly said, our development of appropriate decisions,” Maria Zakharova added
Moscow has no illusions that Ankara can move away from its obligation within NATO regarding Sweden’s accession to the alliance, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
“Turkey is a member of NATO and votes, makes decisions, takes initiatives on the NATO agenda. We should not forget about this, so I urge you to remember this. Turkey is a NATO member, which also has NATO infrastructure on its territory, so there should not be any illusions that Turkey is somehow departing from its NATO obligations,” she said.
According to the diplomat, the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO changes the balance of power in the European region and creates threats to both the security of the Russian Federation and “security in general, given the destructive power that NATO has.”
“This, of course, will influence, as the Russian leadership has repeatedly said, our development of appropriate decisions,” Zakharova added.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a personal meeting under the patronage of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Vilnius on Monday. During that meeting they agreed that Turkey will begin the process of ratifying Sweden’s application for NATO membership. It includes six points, which states that Sweden has made the necessary changes to its legislation and over the past year has significantly strengthened the fight against terrorist manifestations in the activities of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), and also resumed military exports to Turkey. These goals were outlined during last year’s NATO summit in Madrid.
Source: Tass