According to the Turkish news agency Anadolu, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s precondition for green-lighting Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership is that the countries’ public service broadcasters must stop conducting television interviews with “terrorist leaders.”

The Turkish president voiced his demands in a press conference on Wednesday (8 June) with his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro.

Erdogan’s comments were likely sparked by recent reports from the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) from Syria and an interview with a Kurdish leader Salih Muslim.

“The world does not change by trying to harness the media and the freedom of speech,” said Jokinen on the YLE website.

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Providing his support was also the Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto.

“The Finnish Broadcasting Company, just like all media in the country, enjoys complete press freedom. That is of course something untouchable in Finland,” he said.

Source: Euractiv