American journalist Seymour Hersh said on Thursday, that US President Joe Biden promised his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund, in return for Ankara’s ratification of Sweden’s membership in NATO.
On his website, Hersh said, citing sources that Biden promised that the International Monetary Fund will provide Türkiye with financial assistance in the amount of between $11 and $13 billion.
The source added, “Biden needed this decision, and Türkiye is going through a severe financial crisis”.
Last Wednesday, Erdoğan announced that Türkiye wouldn’t be able to ratify Sweden’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, before next October, at the earliest, because the Turkish parliament won’t convene before that date”.
The US president Joe Biden announced, upon his reception at the White House, the Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Christerson, that he was looking forward impatiently to Sweden’s accession to NATO.
Like a number of its allies, the United States wants Sweden to join NATO by the defense alliance summit on July 11 and 12 in Vilnius, after neighboring Finland joined the alliance on April 4.
Türkiye’s previous rejection of Sweden’s accession is related to differences over Stockholm’s position on Kurdish opposition movements, most notably the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara has blacklisted, considering them as terrorist groups.
A new incident added to the cooling of relations between the two countries, when an Iraqi burned a copy of the Qur’an outside the main mosque in Stockholm, which prompted Erdoğan to direct harsh criticism to Sweden.
