Tsavousoglou returns: Greece also delayed Macedonia’s accession to NATO

During Mevlüt Çavuşoλουlu’s press conference with the Foreign Ministers of Poland and Romania in Ankara today, in order to justify Turkey’s negative stance on Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO, he said that other countries have occasionally encountered obstacles. in NATO, like Greece with ‘Macedonia’, as it called Northern Macedonia.

According to sigmalive, Tsavousoglou accused Greece of being the reason that delayed the accession of ‘Macedonia’, because it demanded that another country change its name.

“How many years did Macedonia’s accession take? 11 years. Why did it take 11 years? Why did Greece ask Macedonia to change its name? It became Northern Macedonia. After that it was able to become a NATO member and it took 11 years. We do not want a country, no country, to change its name. I do not want to go into these details, there are friendly and neighboring countries between them, but we do not want a country to change its name, nor do we say to a country, ‘You, in fact, are Turks, so “Accept that you are Turks.” “These things are happening. These are things that are happening in the EU today,” he said.

“Sweden and Finland to stop supporting terrorism and lift the arms embargo”

“Our request, he added, is perfectly legitimate, clear and unequivocal. These countries support terrorism. They must stop supporting terrorism. And they must also lift the restrictions on us in the defense industry. No such decisions can be taken against us.” But unfortunately there are such countries within NATO, these are decisions that are made only against enemies, but also not against enemies.

We are quite clear and precise. I hope Finland and Sweden understood us very well. Other Member States should also encourage these two countries in this direction. We are always in favor of dialogue, we hope that these expectations will be met in a concrete way. ”