Türkiye demands EU membership path for Sweden’s NATO bid

ISTANBUL

Türkiye has demanded the resumption of the full membership talks with the European Union to consider the accession of Sweden into NATO, a day before the critical alliance’s leaders’ summit in Vilnius.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan departed to Vilnius on July 10 to attend the summit and hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of the prominent allies, including United States President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

On his first day in Lithuania, Erdoğan was also scheduled to hold a trilateral meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Sweden’s bid to join NATO. He also planned to meet Charles Michel, the president of the EU Council.

At a press conference before his departure, Erdoğan linked Swedish efforts to join the alliance and Türkiye’s 50-year-long waiting to become an EU member. Recalling that most of the NATO members are also in the EU, Erdoğan said “I want to address those countries that have kept us waiting on the doors of the EU for 50 years. First, open the way to Türkiye’s membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland.”

Türkiye approved Finland’s joining of the alliance in Finland after the Nordic state fulfilled the Madrid Agreement signed between Türkiye, Sweden and Finland. The deal stipulates concrete steps in the fight against terror.

Erdoğan said he discussed Türkiye’s long-stalled EU bid path in his phone conversation with U.S. President Biden late on July 9. “I told him that this is the expectation of our nation for 50 years. We are Türkiye, not an ordinary country,” he stated.

The Turkish President recalled that he will have a meeting with Biden on July 11 with hopes to overcome the differences between the two countries on the defense cooperation and fight against terrorism.

Türkiye officially requested to buy 40 new F-16s and 79 modernization kits from the U.S. after it was expelled from the F-35 next generation fighter jet program. Due to the objections in the U.S. Congress, the Biden administration has not yet formally sent the sale to the approval of the congressmen.

“Biden tells me that he is doing his best to this end. And he asks the same from us [on Sweden]. But these are two completely different issues,” Erdoğan said, criticizing Washington’s attempts to link these two issues. The supply of the F-16s to Türkiye will strengthen NATO’s power in the south wing, Erdoğan recalled.

He also said the U.S. has not yet reimbursed $1.45 billion that Türkiye had paid for the F-35s and underlined that he will raise all these matters during the meeting on July 11.

On a question, Erdoğan recalled that the last word on Sweden’s bid to enter the alliance belongs to the Turkish Parliament. “If they have their Congress, then we have our Turkish Grand National Assembly. It is impossible to admit Sweden in NATO unless our parliament says ‘yes,’” he stated.

Fidan, Blinken talk over the phone

In the meantime, the two diplomats of Türkiye and the U.S. held their third phone conversation in the past couple of days and before the summit. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on the phone in the early hours of July 10, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said, informing that the two men discussed the agenda of the summit, the sale of F-16s and Sweden’s NATO bid.

“The Secretary emphasized that now is the time for Sweden to formally join the NATO Alliance, and for the U.S. and Türkiye to further strengthen our longstanding defense cooperation,” said U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller in a brief statement.

Stoltenberg supports Türkiye's EU Ambition

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has expressed his backing for Türkiye's aspirations to join the European Union on July 10, in response to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's recent comments connecting Sweden's NATO membership with the country's long-pending EU application.

In a joint press conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda in the capital Vilnius, where NATO's annual leaders’ summit is scheduled to take place today, Stoltenberg also noted that Türkiye's EU membership was not among the conditions outlined in the agreement signed by Sweden, Finland and Türkiye at last year's summit in Madrid.

Emphasizing that Sweden had successfully met those requirements, Stoltenberg expressed optimism about a positive decision regarding the country's pending NATO bid during the summit in Lithuania.

The formal negotiations started between Türkiye and the EU for the former’s joining of the 27-member club in 2005, but the process has de facto been suspended by Brussels due to the country’s inability to fulfill the required membership criteria.