Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Friday that she hopes her country's NATO membership will be approved by Türkiye as soon as possible.
Marin answered press members' questions at the entrance to the informal EU Leaders' Summit held in Prague, the Czech Republic, on Friday.
Answering the question about the meeting she had with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during the European Political Community (EPC) meeting in Prague on Thursday, Marin said that they discussed the approval process of her country's NATO membership with Erdoğan.
Marin stressed that Erdoğan said, "Finland is not the issue."
"We have always been consistent in our policies when it comes to Türkiye. We negotiated before the (NATO's) Madrid Summit. Now we fulfill those agreements. I hope Türkiye approves our NATO membership as soon as possible,” Marin said.
Marin did not want to comment on the talks between Sweden and Türkiye. "I think it's important for Finland and Sweden to join NATO at the same time because it's a matter of security in northern Europe,” she added.
Earlier, Erdoğan spoke to press members on Thursday evening after the EPC meetings.
Erdoğan said that Türkiye would continue opposing Sweden's NATO membership bid until its demands are met for a tougher Swedish stance against terrorist organizations.
"As long as terrorist organizations demonstrate on Swedish streets and terrorists are present in their parliament, our approach to the issue will not be positive," Erdoğan told reporters at the Prague meeting of the European Political Community.
Erdoğan on Thursday met with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on the sidelines of the European summit in the Czech capital.
The two leaders chatted at Prague Castle, where the first meeting of the European Political Community was being held.
Speaking to the Swedish state news agency TT after the meeting, Andersson said she had a good meeting with Erdoğan.
She said the new Swedish government, expected to be announced next week, will also comply with a trilateral memorandum signed in late June between Türkiye, Sweden, and Finland on the two Nordic countries' NATO accession bids.
Andersson added that she and Erdoğan also discussed the formation process of the new government in Sweden, adding that even if a new government excluding her Swedish Social Democratic Party is formed, they would stick to the memorandum as the opposition.
The three countries reached a breakthrough agreement on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid in June, where Sweden and Finland agreed on a set of steps to be taken to address Türkiye’s concerns about the candidacies.
To date, 28 out of the 30 NATO member states have ratified the accession of Sweden and Finland. Only Hungary and Türkiye remain.
Stockholm and Helsinki, which both reversed decades of non-alignment when they applied for membership following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had expected the application process to be quick, as they had received assurances they would be welcomed “with open arms.”
Even after Sweden and Finland were formally invited, Ankara insisted it could still block entry into the Western alliance if it feels the Nordic countries failed to deliver on their promises.
Sweden and Finland had imposed arms export embargoes on Türkiye after its military operation seeking to clear northern Syria east of the Euphrates of the PKK and YPG in 2019. ISP revoked existing permits and granted no new ones since then though no formal embargo existed.
Türkiye, in May this year, said it had received positive signals regarding lifting the embargo.
