Turkish President Recep Erdogan said the European Union must clear the way for Ankara to join the bloc before the Turkish parliament approves Swedenʼs bid to join NATO.
Reuters writes about it.
Erdogan called on countries "that have made Turkey wait at the door of the EU for more than 50 years" to open the way to the bloc so that his country would allow Sweden to join NATO "as it did for Finland". Recep Erdogan plans to further voice such a position at the NATO summit in Vilnius.
Turkeyʼs application to join the European Union has been frozen for many years after membership negotiations began in 2005, when Erdogan was in his first term as prime minister. Relations between Ankara and EU members cooled after a failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, but have now improved. Earlier, the EU criticized Turkey for human rights violations and lack of rule of law.
The Turkish president added that everything depends on the implementation of the agreement reached last summer at the Alliance summit in Madrid, saying that no one should expect compromises from Ankara.
According to him, Stockholm did not do enough against those whom Turkey considers terrorists, in particular members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workersʼ Party.
- In May 2022, Sweden and Finland renounced their traditional neutrality against the backdrop of Russiaʼs military invasion of Ukraine and submitted applications to join NATO. Finland joined the bloc in April 2023. Of the 30 NATO countries, Turkey and Hungary have not yet ratified Swedenʼs accession. Turkey is blocking entry, arguing that Stockholm has not fulfilled its obligations to extradite alleged Kurdish extremists. At the same time, the Parliament of Hungary postponed the ratification of Swedenʼs application to join NATO until the autumn session. Hungarian Prime Minister Orbánʼs government believes that Swedish politicians have told "blatant lies" about the state of democracy in Hungary.
- In March, the Hungarian parliament abstained from voting for Swedenʼs accession to NATO. Orbán says relations between Hungary and Sweden must improve before Stockholmʼs membership application is approved by Budapest. Sweden criticizes Hungaryʼs policy of rapprochement with Russia.
- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on June 4 that Sweden has fulfilled all Turkeyʼs requirements for joining the Alliance.