The German and French ambassadors to Ankara were summoned to the Turkish foreign ministry to protest events organized by Kurdish militants in those countries, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Tuesday.
Speaking to state-run Anadolu news agency, Cavusoglu said the ambassadors were told of Turkey's discomfort with the events organized by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
Separately, Turkey has said it opposes Sweden and Finland's bids to join NATO over what Ankara calls its harboring of Kurdish militants in those countries, and also over their arms export ban.
Finland has to stop "protecting" the PKK and take Turkey's security concerns seriously if it wants Turkey to accept it in NATO, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesperson told a Finnish newspaper on Tuesday.
"The problem is not that Finland would not understand Turkey. Finland refuses to take Turkey's security concerns seriously," Communications Director of the Turkish President, Fahrettin Altun told Finland's largest daily Helsingin Sanomat by email.
Altun's words echoed what Erdogan's chief foreign policy adviser Ibrahim Kalin told his US counterpart on Monday, calling for the two Nordic countries to "take concrete steps regarding the terrorist organizations that threaten Turkey's national security".
"Eventually Finland's government must decide which is more important, to join NATO or protect these kinds of organizations," Altun told the paper.
