U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Türkiye and Hungary to approve Sweden's NATO membership, as he said there is no link between Stockholm's bid and Ankara's F-16 upgrades.

Blinken maintained that the administration had not linked the two issues but acknowledged that some U.S. lawmakers had. President Joe Biden implicitly linked the two issues in a phone call to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday.

"I spoke to Erdoğan and he still wants to work on something on the F-16s. I told him we wanted a deal with Sweden. So let’s get that done," Biden said.

Still, Blinken insisted the two issues were distinct. However, he stressed that the completion of both would dramatically strengthen European security.

"Both of these are vital, in our judgment, to European security," Blinken told reporters at a joint news conference in the northern Swedish city of Lulea with Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. "We believe that both should go forward as quickly as possible; that is to say Sweden’s accession and moving forward on the F-16 package more broadly."

"We believe the time is now," Blinken said. He declined to predict when Türkiye and Hungary, the only other NATO member not yet to have ratified Sweden’s membership, would grant their approval.

But, he said, "We have no doubt that it can be, it should be, and we expect it to be" completed by the time alliance leaders meet in Vilnius, Lithuania in July at an annual summit.

Fresh from the weekend, Erdoğan may be willing to ease his objections to Sweden’s membership. Ankara accuses Sweden of not responding to its security concerns regarding terrorist groups, and a series of Quran-burning protests in Stockholm — making his tough stance even more popular.

Kristersson said the two sides had been in contact since Sunday’s vote and voiced no hesitancy in speaking about the benefits Sweden would bring to NATO "when we join the alliance."

Sweden and Finland — which historically stayed militarily non-aligned to avoid conflict with their giant neighbor — have both formally sought NATO membership after Russia last year invaded Ukraine, which had tried unsuccessfully to join the alliance and its joint security guarantees.

Hungary, like Türkiye, has also not yet ratified Sweden's NATO membership, with Budapest pointing to grievances with Sweden over EU budget funds, among other issues.

Earlier this month, Swedish lawmakers passed a bill tightening the country's counterterrorism laws, in an attempt by Stockholm to address Türkiye's security concerns about its NATO membership.

The revision includes a prison term of up to four years for individuals convicted of participating in an extremist organization in a way that is intended to promote, strengthen or support the group. However, the penalty can be increased to eight years when a crime is deemed serious.

The legislation allows for someone identified as a leader of a terror organization to receive a life sentence, which in Sweden generally means a minimum of 20-25 years.