Turkey looks positively on

Finland's application for NATO membership, but does not support

Sweden's bid, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on
Wednesday.
"Our position on Finland is positive, but it is not positive
on Sweden," Erdogan said of their NATO applications in a speech
to his AK Party deputies in parliament.
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join the
trans-Atlantic defence pact after Russia invaded Ukraine, but
faced unexpected objections from Turkey and have since sought to
win its support.
Ankara wants Helsinki and Stockholm in particular to take a
tougher line against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which
is considered a terror group by Turkey and the European Union,
and another group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
The three nations reached an agreement on a way forward in
Madrid last June, but Ankara suspended talks last month as
tensions rose following protests in Stockholm in which a
far-right Danish politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy
book, the Koran.
"Sweden should not bother to try at this point. We will not
say 'yes' to their NATO application as long as they allow
burning of the Koran," Erdogan said.
On the weekend, he signalled that Ankara could agree to
Finland joining NATO ahead of Sweden. But Finland's Foreign
Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Monday his country was sticking
to its joint application plan.
Of NATO's 30 members, only Turkey and Hungary are yet to
ratify the Nordic countries' memberships.
Asked whether Turkey had plans for separate processes for
Finland and Sweden, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
said it was NATO and the two Nordic countries who would decide
on any separate ratifications.
"If NATO and the two countries decide for separate
membership processes, Turkey will of course reconsider Finland's
membership separately and more favourably," Cavusoglu said at a
news conference with his Estonian counterpart in Tallinn.
Finland on Wednesday repeated its position that it will move
in step with its Nordic neighbour.
"Finland continues to advance the membership process
together with Sweden," the joint presidential and government
committee on Finnish security and foreign policy said in a
statement.
"The fastest possible realisation of both countries
memberships is in the best interest of Finland, Sweden and the
whole NATO," it added.
(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu and Ezgi Erkoyun; additional
reporting by Essi Lehto in Helsinki;
Writing by Huseyin Hayatsever;
Editing by Daren Butler, Jonathan Spicer and Ben Dangerfield)