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Turkey has called off indefinitely a trilateral mechanism meeting with Sweden and Finland scheduled for February following a weekend protest in Stockholm that witnessed Koran-burning prompting Ankara to condemn the development, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT’s Tuesday report.
The meeting that was scheduled to take place in Brussels in February, was postponed at Ankara's request, TRT said, basing the report on Turkish diplomatic sources. Erdogan's spokesman stressed earlier this month that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was also to attend.
A source at the Turkish presidency clarified that Turkey had not cancelled the meeting, but merely postponed it. The source, however, did not specify when the meeting would take place.
The presidency refused to provide on-record comment about the postponement.
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Sweden should not expect Turkey's support for its NATO membership after a protest near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm at the weekend including the burning of a copy of the Koran.
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after Russia invaded Ukraine, and now need the backing of all current NATO states to advance their application.