Turkish, Finnish foreign ministers discuss NATO enlargement

Türkiye's Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Friday met with his Finnish counterpart Pekka Haavisto in the capital Ankara and discussed NATO enlargement.

In a Twitter post, Çavuşoğlu announced his meeting with Pekka which came ahead of Finnish President Sauli Niinisto's visit to Ankara.

"Discussed NATO enlargement. Thanked for the earthquake support," he added.

Abandoning decades of military non-alignment, Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO last May.

However, Türkiye, a longstanding NATO member, asked the two Nordic states to take concrete action against terror groups like the PKK and FETÖ, which carry out propaganda, funding, and recruitment activities in these countries.

In June, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum with Türkiye to address Ankara's security concerns, and senior diplomats and officials from the three countries have held various meetings since then to discuss the implementation of the trilateral agreement.

Separately, Çavuşoğlu spoke over the phone with his Turkmen counterpart Rashid Meredov and discussed bilateral relations.

According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Meredov congratulated Çavuşoğlu over Thursday's extraordinary summit of the heads of state of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) held in Ankara.

The OTS, formerly called the Turkic Council, is an international organization comprising prominent independent Turkic countries that work together to elevate relations and union among themselves.

Çavuşoğlu later spoke to his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian over the phone on Friday and discussed regional matters, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

The Turkish minister also held a phone conversation with Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov and discussed regional issues, the ministry said.