Sweden has still not won Turkey’s support to join NATO ahead of the military alliance’s summit in Vilnius next month, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
“Sweden’s expectations don’t mean we’ll follow them,” Erdoğan said during a trip to Azerbaijan, according to Bloomberg and Turkish media, referring to Stockholm’s hopes of becoming a NATO member before the Vilnius summit.
Spurred by Russia’s war on Ukraine and the rising threat coming from Moscow, Sweden and Finland officially asked to join NATO last year, and later committed to joining the alliance together.
But Sweden’s candidacy has not yet been approved — unlike its eastern neighbor’s.
Turkey has been dragging its feet on signing off on its bid, citing concerns about Stockholm’s support for Kurdish groups which Ankara considers to be terrorist entities — including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has a following in Sweden but is banned in Turkey.
In late May, the Swedish government said it had updated its domestic terrorism legislation to include a veiled reference to the PKK, and made all the necessary commitments to ease Ankara’s concerns — but Erdoğan was still unconvinced.
“Sweden must first of all eradicate what this terrorist organization is doing,” the Turkish president said in his remarks cited on Wednesday. “In this picture, we cannot approach this positively.”
Sweden — and Ukraine’s — accession to NATO will be discussed at the alliance’s next summit, which will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 11-12.
Representatives from Sweden, Turkey and Finland met Wednesday in Ankara to discuss the issue.
Elçin Poyrazlar contributed reporting.
