Swedish and Finnish mission to woo Turkey over NATO bids

Sweden and Finland will send delegations to Ankara this week hoping to clear up differences with Turkey which opposes their applications to join NATO, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Tuesday.

"When we see the problems coming, of course, we take this diplomatically. We are sending our delegations to visit Ankara from both Sweden and Finland. This will happen tomorrow," Haavisto told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Sweden and Finland applied to join the transatlantic alliance in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We think that NATO is a group of 30 democratic countries with common values and very strong transatlantic cooperation, and this is what we are looking for at this moment," Haavisto added.

Turkey's foreign ministry said presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and deputy foreign minister Sedat Onal will meet the Finnish-Swedish officials on Wednesday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by private broadcaster NTV that Ankara has prepared a "draft agreement" that will be the basis of the discussions.

Turkey wants "guarantees" that can be made in an official, signed agreement, not "wishes", he said.