Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the follow-up to the decisions taken at the NATO summit earlier this week in a phone call with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Jakarta, Fidan’s office said Friday.
Fidan and Blinken's one-on-one meeting also addressed the current situation in Afghanistan, the Turkish Foreign Ministry informed.
Fidan further met with his Japanese and Norwegian counterparts, Hayashi Yoshimasa and Anniken Huitfeldt, at the ASEAN summit.
All 31 leaders of NATO member states were in the Lithuanian capital on Tuesday and Wednesday this week for the annual gathering.
In addition to the alliance’s sustained support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, Türkiye’s greenlight to Sweden’s long-stalled membership bid was the highlight of the event.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed to send the Nordic country’s accession protocol to the Turkish parliament for ratification, Stoltenberg announced on the eve of the summit after a meeting with Erdoğan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
At the trilateral meeting, Stockholm assured it would assuage Ankara’s security concerns over terrorist organizations such as the PKK, and its affiliates, and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup in Türkiye.
Sweden took into force an anti-terrorism law in June this year aimed at cracking down on terror elements. Türkiye has been demanding the implementation of the law, as well as more concrete action in the fight against terrorism.
Erdoğan said after the summit the ratification could take until October when the Turkish legislative will resume sessions after the summer hiatus.
