According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is lifting his blockade of Sweden joining the alliance.
During a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Erdogan agreed to submit the accession protocol to the Turkish parliament as soon as possible, Stoltenberg said at a press conference in Vilnius on Monday evening.
A few hours earlier, Erdogan had made a surprising additional demand. Before leaving for the NATO summit, Erdogan told EU countries in Istanbul on Monday: “First we are paving the way for Turkey to the European Union, then we are paving the way for Sweden, just as we paved it for Finland.”
In Vilnius, the Turkish president not only met NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg and Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson, but also EU Council President Charles Michel. He then announced that he wanted to revive relations with Turkey. He and Erdogan “discussed ways to bring EU-Turkey cooperation to the fore and rekindle our relations,” Michel wrote.
Because of Russia’s war with NATO
Announcing the meeting on Friday, Stoltenberg made it clear that he was counting on Turkey to lift its blockade against Sweden’s entry into the alliance. Further delays would only be welcomed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said.
In view of the Russian offensive war against Ukraine, Sweden had applied for NATO membership together with Finland in May 2022. Finland was welcomed as the 31st member of the alliance in early April, while Sweden had not yet received approval from Turkey and Hungary.
Source: Krone
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