French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called on Türkiye and Hungary to approve Sweden's NATO membership before the bloc's upcoming summit in Vilnius in July, as she claimed that further delays risked the security of the bloc's 31 members.
"It is in everyone's interest, including Türkiye, and we are counting on it now that the elections are over to quickly ratify Sweden's membership," Colonna told reporters at a news conference with her Swedish counterpart Tobias Billstrom.
"We want it (Sweden) to be in Vilnius as a full member."
Billstrom claimed Stockholm had met the terms of an agreement with Ankara, pointing to new anti-terrorism legislation, and that it was now in the "hands of Türkiye to decide."
On Thursday, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that Sweden’s inclusion into the alliance may not be possible before the much-anticipated bloc summit in Vilnius next month.
“I welcome the fact that we had the meeting of the permanent mechanism between Finland, Sweden and Türkiye, where also NATO participated in Ankara this week. This was a follow-up to my meeting with President (Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan a couple of weeks ago, where we had good discussions on how to make progress on Swedish accession into the alliance. And President Erdoğan and I agreed then to convene the meeting of the permanent mechanism that met this week. The meeting took place in a constructive atmosphere, with constructive talks, where they addressed progress and also identified how to continue to make progress and also agreed to continue to work on how to ensure that we are moving forward on a suite that is an accession of Sweden into the Alliance,” he said.
On Wednesday, Erdoğan said Sweden should not expect much from the upcoming NATO summit in July.
He said Türkiye cannot approve pro-PKK rallies in the Nordic country. “We cannot have a positive approach (to Sweden’s NATO accession) under the current circumstances. NATO cannot force us to admit Sweden without acting against terrorism. Unless you resolve this issue, we cannot merrily approve Sweden’s membership in Vilnius,” he said, referring to the upcoming NATO summit where Sweden hopes Türkiye will approve its membership bid.
Sabah newspaper reported on Thursday that Ankara rejected “timeframe pressure” for Sweden’s membership about its approval before the Vilnius summit during the talks on Wednesday. The newspaper said Ankara welcomed legislative amendments for counterterrorism but insisted on the display of resolution and sincerity in implementing counterterrorism legislation. The Turkish side also screened a four-minute video about the presence of terrorist groups in Sweden for the Swedish delegation.
