Türkiye, Sweden to hold security meeting in Ankara
ANKARA

Türkiye and Sweden will hold a key meeting to improve their security cooperation, especially against PKK’s presence and activities on the latter’s soil, in line with a bilateral agreement that allowed the Swedish admission into NATO.
The meeting, dubbed the Security Compact, will be held under the leadership of the two countries’ foreign ministers, Hakan Fidan and Maria Malmer Stenergard, on Jan. 21, in the capital Ankara, according to diplomatic sources.
Türkiye’s Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and Sweden’s Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer will also attend the meeting.
The Security Compact meeting was scheduled for Sept. 18 but was canceled as the plane carrying the Swedish delegation had to return while on route to Türkiye due to a technical problem.
According to sources, Fidan will convey Türkiye’s expectations from Sweden in the field of counterterrorism especially in the fight against PKK, YPG and FETÖ, disallowing their propaganda and fund-raising activities. He will also underline Türkiye’s concerns over a rising far right, Islamophobia and racism in Europe and stress that impactful struggle against these trends are essential.
He will also recall Türkiye’s aim to deepen bilateral cooperation in the defense industry after the lifting of arms restrictions.
The decision to create the Security Compact mechanism was made at a meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and then NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg during the alliance’s Vilnius summit in July 2023.
Türkiye had green-lighted Sweden’s and Finland’s joining the alliance only after these two Nordic states agreed to fight against the presence of PKK and other anti-Türkiye terror organizations.
A trilateral agreement signed between Türkiye, Sweden and Finland in June 2022 stipulated the implementation of a road map that outlined the measures these two countries will fulfill in combating terror. Finland entered NATO in 2023 and Sweden in early 2024.
Sweden and Finland have taken important steps in line with this agreement in the past years. Sweden has amended its constitution for a much more effective fight against terror.