It is unlikely that the dispute with Turkey over Finland and Sweden joining NATO will be resolved before the upcoming NATO leaders summit in Spain, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference with European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, Niinistö said that even if Turkey was not shifting its position, it was still progress that the countries were negotiating with each other.
Finland is unlikely to join the North Atlantic alliance by September, the nation's president admitted, as NATO member Turkey's objections to its accession persist.
Niinisto also told Finland's public broadcaster that he had little hope for a breakthrough at next week's NATO summit in Madrid, but added that "there has been progress in the talks, and negotiations continue."
Niinisto told YLE that Ankara has held its ground in its talks with Finland, along with fellow NATO hopeful Sweden. "I don't believe that we'll come to an agreement with Turkey at the NATO Summit in Spain. I don't think we'll join NATO before September."
On the other hand, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Tuesday that the problem regarding Turkey's opposition to Finland and Sweden's NATO membership will be resolved before the alliance's summit in Madrid later this month,
Marin's remarks came at a joint press conference with her Croatian counterpart Andrej Plenkovic in the capital Zagreb.
Marin said that NATO should be united and that Finland and Sweden would make the alliance stronger in the long run.
Replying to a question, she said she believed a solution would be reached to Turkey's opposition to the two Nordic countries' NATO memberships given NATO's open-door policy.
The NATO leaders' summit is scheduled to be held from June 29-30.
Plenkovic for his part said Croatia supports Finland in its bid for NATO membership.
"We respect Finland's decision to become a member of NATO. Finland and Sweden also want NATO's security umbrella. Croatia is aware of the importance of NATO in today's world. Finland has a border with Russia,'' he said.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said that talks with Turkey on Monday had been "constructive."
"The most important thing here is that the negotiations will continue," Linde said on the talks that were held in Brussels, adding that Stockholm was prepared for a lengthy negotiating process.
The tensions with Turkey also came up in a meeting between NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday.
Macron said during the meeting that he wanted clarity from Ankara on its stance, according to the Elysee Palace.
He underlined his strong support for Finland and Sweden to join the alliance soon and help defend the stability of the Euro-Atlantic region.
Turkey on Monday said it does not consider next week's NATO summit as a final deadline for resolving its objections to Finland and Sweden joining the Western defense alliance.
"As we have said before, the NATO summit (in Madrid) is not an endpoint for us, so those negotiations will continue. That's what we told our interlocutors from Finland and Sweden," Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın told a news conference in Brussels following NATO-hosted talks with Finland and Sweden.
Ankara has called on Stockholm and Helsinki to prevent the terrorist group from collecting funds, recruiting new members and ensuring that it ends its activities and propaganda against Turkey, according to Kalın.
Kalın said that if the Swedish government did not take steps to end the PKK's actions within their countries, talks were unlikely to progress.
He said the recent projection of pro-PKK images on buildings in Stockholm was one of the most striking examples of the terror group's brazen presence in the country.
The spokesperson also voiced Ankara's expectations regarding the lifting of a direct or indirect arms embargo imposed on Turkey.
Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the bids have faced opposition from Turkey, which has been angered by what it says is Helsinki and Stockholm's support for terrorist groups and arms embargoes on Ankara.
Last week, Turkey said documents it received from Sweden and NATO in response to the earlier written demands it presented the two candidates were far from meeting its expectations and any negotiations must first address Turkish concerns.
While the two Nordic countries said talks to resolve the dispute would continue, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said recently that Ankara had not received any responses to its demands, including stopping support for terrorist groups, lifting arms embargoes on Ankara and extraditing terrorism suspects it seeks.
NATO leaders will convene in Madrid on June 29-30. Any NATO membership requires the approval of all 30 members of the alliance. Turkey has been a NATO ally for more than 70 years and has the alliance's second-biggest army.
The comments from Erdoğan's top foreign policy adviser followed a round of urgent talks in Brussels that NATO leaders had hoped would pave the way for the Nordic states' formal approval to join the bloc at the Madrid summit.