Turkey says Finland must end arms embargo to join NATO

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s foreign minister says Finland must publicly declare that it’s lifting an arms embargo on Turkey to win Ankara’s approval for its membership into NATO. Mevlut Cavusoglu made the comments Tuesday ahead of a planned visit by the Finnish defense minister. Sweden and Finland applied for membership in the alliance after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February, amid concerns that Russia might target them next. But NATO-member Turkey has been holding up their membership bids because it wants the two countries to crackdown on groups that it considers to be terrorists and lift an embargo on arms sales. Sweden had declared it was removing its ban on arms sales to Turkey in September.