Turkey Insists on Saying 'NO' to Sweden and Finland's NATO Bid

On Thusday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that his country would say "no" to Finland and Sweden's NATO membership bid.

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"We told our relevant friends that we would say 'no' to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, and we will resolutely continue this policy," he said.

Amid Helsinki and Stockholm's NATO bids, Erdogan reiterated Ankara's policy at a meeting with a group of young people in Ankara on the occasion of the Commemoration of Ataturk, Youth and Sports Day.

Erdogan said Turkey once allowed Greece to join NATO and added that his government would not make the same mistake again. Even if the two Nordic countries now pledge to give security guarantees to Turkey on the issue of these groups, they will "pull a trick" later, he said.

The Turkish leader reiterated that Finland and Sweden are harboring people affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Syria's Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). He also accuses them of harboring the members of the Gulen Movement which Ankara says is behind a failed military coup attempt in 2016.

"These are the countries that encourage terrorist sources and give them serious financial and weapon support," Erdogan said, adding that "the two countries, especially Sweden, are home to terror groups... They also imposed arms sanctions on us."

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization the U.S., and the EU, has been rebelling against the Turkish state for over three decades, and Ankara sees the YPG as the PKK's Syrian branch.