Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced, on Monday, that he would support Sweden’s membership in NATO, provided that the European Union relaunched his country’s accession negotiations to the bloc.
“First, open the way for Turkey’s membership in the European Union, and then we open it for Sweden, just as we opened the way for Finland,” Erdogan said in remarks reported by local media before his departure to participate in the NATO summit in Lithuania.
′′ This is what I said ′′ to US President Joe Biden, he added, when the two presidents spoke by phone, Sunday.
Reuters reported that Erdogan said in a “surprising statement” on Monday that the European Union should open the way for Ankara to join the bloc before the Turkish parliament approves Sweden’s request to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Turkey submitted its candidacy to the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union, in 1987, according to AFP.
It gained the status of a candidate country to join the union in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.
Negotiations stalled in 2016 due to European concerns about human rights violations in Turkey.
“I would like to stress one fact. Turkey has been waiting at the gate of the European Union for fifty years,” Erdogan said.
He added, “Almost all NATO members are members of the European Union. I am now addressing those countries that have been making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius.”
Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union have stagnated for years, after launching negotiations to obtain membership in the bloc in 2005 when Erdogan was prime minister, according to Reuters.
Relations between Ankara and the EU countries were tense several years ago, especially after a failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, but they have improved considerably since then. The European Union relies on the assistance of Turkey, a member of NATO, especially with regard to the migration file.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning decades-long military non-alignment policies of the Cold War.
While Finland won approval to join the alliance last April, Sweden’s request is being rejected so far by Turkey and Hungary. Stockholm will continue its bid to join the alliance during the Vilnius summit.
Erdogan said Sweden’s accession depended on implementing the agreement reached last summer at the NATO summit in Madrid, adding that Ankara should not be expected to make concessions.
Ankara says Sweden has not taken enough action against what Turkey considers terrorists, particularly members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey, the European Union and the United States list as a terrorist organisation.
The Turkish president indicated that ending the war between Ukraine and Russia would facilitate Kiev’s accession to NATO.
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2023-07-10 12:42:17
