Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan suggested on Monday that Ankara could approve Sweden’s entry into NATO ahead of the upcoming summit in Lithuania, if in return the EU opens the door to Turkey’s accession to the European bloc. “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union, and then we will pave the way for Sweden, as we did with Finland,” Erdoğan told reporters before leaving by plane for Vilnius. “Turkey has been left waiting at the gates of the European Union for more than 50 years, while almost all NATO members are members of the EU,” lamented the Turkish president.
His words, which have been welcomed by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, came precisely on the same day that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken phoned Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss the upcoming NATO summit and the entry of Sweden: a subject that was already the subject of discussion in another telephone conversation between Erdoğan himself and Joe Biden days ago, and which indicates that Turkey could be receiving strong pressure from the United States, despite the fact that Ankara maintains that Sweden must carry out further efforts to pursue the activities of the PKK terrorist group on its territory.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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