Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged Russia and Ukraine to act responsibly and honor agreements they signed in Istanbul last week regarding the export of Ukrainian grains.
“We expect everyone to own their signatures on the agreement and act according to their responsibilities they undertook. We want everyone to avoid actions that are against the spirit of the agreement,” he said, speaking to Turkish state broadcaster TRT.
Reacting to Russian missile strikes that hit the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa just one day after Kyiv and Moscow signed a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to allow shipments, Erdogan said that Istanbul has increased its diplomatic efforts to avoid any fallout from the attack in Odesa.
“It saddens us that something like that happened. This kind of failure would be harmful for all of us. We’re determined to implement this agreement with all of its components and our efforts in this regard continues,” he underlined.
During the interview with TRT, the Turkish president also reiterated his threat to block Sweden and Finland’s bid for NATO accession, if the Nordic countries don’t comply with the agreements signed in Madrid in late June between Istanbul, Stockholm and Helsinki. The trilateral memorandum led Turkey to conditionally agree to their accession bid, following which, Sweden and Finland made the historic decision to formally apply for NATO membership, ending decades of neutrality. Their bid now requires ratification from all 30 member states’ parliaments and legislatures.
Ankara had said Helsinki and Stockholm agreed to not provide support to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, also known as YPG, and the separatist militant Kurdistan’s Workers Party, also known as PKK, both of which Turkey considers as a terrorist organizations.
“What happened in Madrid is an invitation, not an approval. Result of that invitation will depend on their actions. If you continue to allow these terrorists to march on your streets with protection, well we follow that,” Erdogan said on Monday.
“It’s not just about Sweden and Finland; Germany, France, England, Italy, all of the Scandinavian states are all the same. I told these things to their leaders in my bilateral meetings. For instance, I asked Emmanuel (Macron) what are you going to do, will you continue like this and he laughed. If it is going to be like this, sorry but our parliament wouldn’t look positively on this issue,” he warned.
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