Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a phone call with his U.S. counterpart Anthony Blinken on Monday and discussed NATO enlargement as well as the alliance’s upcoming summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
The call comes a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan discussed the issue with U.S. President Joe Biden.
On Thursday, Sweden failed to convince Türkiye to lift its block on Stockholm’s path to NATO membership in a foreign minister-level meeting, as Ankara requested more action in the fight against terrorism.
On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he would convene a meeting between Erdoğan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Vilnius.
Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning policies of military non-alignment that had lasted through the decades of the Cold War in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While Finland’s NATO membership was green-lighted in April, Türkiye and Hungary have yet to clear Sweden’s bid. Stockholm has been working to join the NATO summit in Vilnius.
