Turkiye is threatening to block Sweden’s acceptance into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) saying its pledge to extradite a Turkish convict fell short of demands.

On Thursday, Turkiye’s justice minister said Sweden’s pledge to extradite a Turkish convict fell far short of Stockholm’s commitments under a deal paving the way for its NATO membership bid.

Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told Milliyet news site that Sweden needed to do far more to win Turkey’s trust.

“If they think that by extraditing ordinary criminals to Turkey they will make us believe that they have fulfilled their promises, they are wrong,” Mr Bozdag said. “Nobody should test Turkey.”

In June, Sweden and fellow NATO applicant Finland signed a deal with Turkiye,  committing them to “expeditiously and thoroughly” look into Ankara’s requests for suspects linked to a 2016 coup attempt.

The Turkish justice ministry in June formally requested the extradition of 21 suspects from Sweden and 12 from Finland.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in July that he told Sweden and Finland that he could still block their application, saying that Stockholm had made a “promise” to extradite “73 terrorists“.

Last week, Stockholm said it would extradite Okan Kale, who had been convicted of credit card fraud and had appeared on a list of people requested by Ankara. 

This move from Turkiye comes ahead of Sweden and Finland’s first formal consultations with Turkiye about the dispute on August 26.

Both Sweden and Finland stepped away from military non-alignment and decided to join the military bloc in response to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine.

Their bids have already been ratified by the United States and 30 other member nations. Each application must win unanimous consent from member states.