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Erdogan Says 'No' to Sweden and Finland's NATO Bid

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
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Erdogan Says 'No' to Sweden and Finland's NATO Bid

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 3, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko

Turkey will oppose Sweden and Finland joining NATO, the country's president flatly stated in a video released Thursday.

“We have told our relevant friends we would say ‘no’ to Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO, and we will continue on our path like this,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a group of Turkish youth in the video for Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day, a national holiday.

Turkey’s approval of Finland and Sweden's application to join the Western military alliance is crucial because NATO makes decisions by consensus. Each of its 30 member countries has the power to veto a membership bid.

Erdogan has said Turkey's objection stems from grievances with Sweden's - and to a lesser degree with Finland’s - perceived support of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and an armed group in Syria that Turkey sees as an extension of the PKK.

Turkey also accuses Sweden and Finland of harboring the followers of Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish government blames for 2016 military coup attempt.

In the remarks, Erdogan accused the two prospective NATO members and especially Sweden of being “a focus of terror, home to terror.”

He accused them of giving financial and weapons support to the armed groups, and claimed the countries' alleged links to terror organizations meant they should not be part of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

The United States struggled Wednesday to get clarity from Turkey over the severity of its opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

In a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the United Nations, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu offered mixed signals. He affirmed his country’s support for NATO’s “open-door” policy and its understanding of Finland and Sweden's desire to join the alliance following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But he also repeated Erdogan’s demands that Turkey’s security concerns about the candidate nations be addressed.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters in Berlin on Sunday after discussions with Turkish officials that “Turkey has made it clear that their intention is not to block membership.” Meanwhile, Blinken and other foreign ministers, including Germany’s top diplomat, Annalena Baerbock, expressed absolute confidence that all NATO members, including Turkey, would welcome the two newcomers.

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World

Israeli Reservist Arrested on Suspicion of Spying for Iran

A long exposure showing the interception of a ballistic missile in the skies above Tel Aviv, as sirens sounds across central Israel, 20 March 2026. EPA/ABIR SULTAN
A long exposure showing the interception of a ballistic missile in the skies above Tel Aviv, as sirens sounds across central Israel, 20 March 2026. EPA/ABIR SULTAN
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Israeli Reservist Arrested on Suspicion of Spying for Iran

A long exposure showing the interception of a ballistic missile in the skies above Tel Aviv, as sirens sounds across central Israel, 20 March 2026. EPA/ABIR SULTAN
A long exposure showing the interception of a ballistic missile in the skies above Tel Aviv, as sirens sounds across central Israel, 20 March 2026. EPA/ABIR SULTAN

Israeli police said on Friday they had arrested an army reservist who served on the Iron Dome air defense system on suspicion of passing secrets to Iran.

The arrest comes as Israel and the United States are locked in a war with Iran that has spread across the Middle East.

"Raz Cohen, a 26-year-old resident of Jerusalem who served in the reserves in the Iron Dome system, was recently arrested on suspicion of committing security offenses involving contact with Iranian intelligence," Israeli police said.

"Over the course of several months, the citizen maintained contact with Iranian intelligence operatives and, under their instructions, was asked to carry out various security missions, including passing on sensitive security information."

Iran has been firing barrages of missiles at Israel in retaliation for a US-Israeli bombing campaign that began on February 28 with the killing of supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Israel's state-of-the-art air defenses have managed to intercept many of the missiles fired by Tehran, but there have been deaths and damage to some strategic sites.

According to Israeli rescue services and authorities, Iranian missile fire toward Israel has killed 15 civilians in the country since the start of the war.

Four Palestinian women also died after Iranian missile fire in the occupied West Bank, the Ramallah-based health ministry said.

World

Italy, Germany and France Offer Help with Hormuz Only after Ceasefire

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands say they are ready "to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz" post-ceasefire. Giuseppe CACACE / AFP/File
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands say they are ready "to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz" post-ceasefire. Giuseppe CACACE / AFP/File
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Italy, Germany and France Offer Help with Hormuz Only after Ceasefire

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands say they are ready "to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz" post-ceasefire. Giuseppe CACACE / AFP/File
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands say they are ready "to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz" post-ceasefire. Giuseppe CACACE / AFP/File

Six major international powers said Thursday they were ready "to contribute to" ensuring safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, though three stressed that any initiative would take place post-ceasefire.

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands said Thursday they were ready "to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz".

The grouping said they "welcome the commitment of nations who are engaging in preparatory planning", as they condemned "in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf".

But Italy, Germany and France made clear later Thursday that they were not talking about any immediate military help, but rather a potential multilateral initiative after a ceasefire.

The declaration came as an effective Iranian blockade of the strait has paralyzed commercial shipping through the crucial maritime chokepoint, which in peacetime sees a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas pass through it.

The war, which erupted on February 28 when the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, has led Tehran to retaliate with strikes across the Gulf region.

Twenty-three commercial vessels, including 10 tankers, have reported incidents or having been attacked.

The situation has left around 20,000 seafarers stranded on approximately 3,200 vessels west of the strait, according to the International Maritime Organization.

"We express our deep concern about the escalating conflict," the allies' joint statement said.

"We call on Iran to cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the Strait to commercial shipping," it added.

"Freedom of navigation is a fundamental principle of international law, including under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

"The effects of Iran's actions will be felt by people in all parts of the world, especially the most vulnerable."

- Not a 'war mission' -

US President Donald Trump has urged other world powers, and NATO, to help reopen the Hormuz Strait to commercial shipping.

But they have rebuffed his call in the short term while insisting they were open to discussions and planning.

Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said the statement by the six countries should not be seen as a "war mission".

"No entry into Hormuz without a truce and a comprehensive multilateral initiative", for which "it is right and appropriate for the United Nations to provide the legal framework", he said in a statement.

And in Berlin, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that any German military involvement "would depend on the situation after a ceasefire... and whether we could participate within the framework of an international mandate".

Military involvement would also require approval by the German parliament, he added.

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters his country planned to sound out permanent members of the UN Security Council on the possibility of establishing a UN framework for future plans -- once the ongoing exchange of fire had ended -- to secure navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

"We have initiated an exploratory process, and we will see in the coming days whether it stands a chance of succeeding," he said in Brussels following a European summit that took place on Thursday.

A UK defense official told reporters at a briefing Wednesday that "the level of threat is such that I don't see many nations being willing to put warships into the middle of that threat right now".

The defense official noted London has sent a "small number" of additional military "planners" to US Central Command to "help with the planning and option development for... whatever comes next in the Strait of Hormuz might look like".

World

Iran's Supreme Leader Says Enemies' 'Security Must be Taken Away'

19 March 2026, Iran, Tehran: An Iranian flag bearing the picture of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, is waved in Tehran. Photo: Saeid Zareian/dpa
19 March 2026, Iran, Tehran: An Iranian flag bearing the picture of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, is waved in Tehran. Photo: Saeid Zareian/dpa
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Iran's Supreme Leader Says Enemies' 'Security Must be Taken Away'

19 March 2026, Iran, Tehran: An Iranian flag bearing the picture of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, is waved in Tehran. Photo: Saeid Zareian/dpa
19 March 2026, Iran, Tehran: An Iranian flag bearing the picture of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, is waved in Tehran. Photo: Saeid Zareian/dpa

Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei called Friday for the enemies of his nations to have their “security” taken away, in his latest message to the public.

Khamenei made the remarks in a statement issued on his behalf and sent to President Masoud Pezeshkian, after Israel killed Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib.

Khamenei hasn’t been seen since he was named as supreme leader, succeeding his father, the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the first day of the war on Feb. 28.

American and Israeli officials have suggested that Mojtaba Khamenei was hurt in the war.