President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said a new period would be started between Türkiye and the U.S., shortly before a closed-door bilateral meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Vilnius, Lithuania on Tuesday.
"The previous meetings with President Biden were warm-up sessions," Erdoğan said and added: "Now we are starting a new period."
The two leaders discussed political, economic and trade relations, as well as cooperation in the field of security and regional issues, according to the Presidential Communications Directorate.
Erdoğan also wished his U.S. counterpart the best of luck for the upcoming presidential elections. Both leaders smiled, and Biden responded by saying he was looking forward to working with Erdoğan in the next five years.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the Director of National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Ibrahim Kalın, Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and others, were part of the Turkish delegation at the bilateral talks.
Biden thanked Erdoğan for his "courage" in dropping opposition to Sweden's entry to NATO.
Biden celebrated the conclusion of a major diplomatic push to get Erdoğan to stop blocking Sweden's application.
"I want to thank you for your diplomacy and your courage to take that on. And I want to thank you for your leadership," Biden told Erdoğan.
The two presidents discussed efforts to boost bilateral cooperation, as they welcomed the recent discussions in the strategic mechanism, according to a statement by the White House.
"They also discussed regional issues of shared interest, including their enduring support for Ukraine and the importance of preserving stability in the Aegean," the statement added.
On Monday, Biden welcomed Türkiye's decision to approve Sweden's NATO membership bid.
The issue of the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye also seemed to get a boost in the wake of the decision on Sweden.
Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, stressed Tuesday that the U.S. president has "been clear and unequivocal for months that he's supported the transfer of F-16s," seeing this as in the interests of NATO.
"He has placed no caveats or conditions on that in his public and private comments over the past few months. And he intends to move forward with that transfer in consultation with Congress."
A U.S. official told AFP that the White House is now "actively engaging" with Congress, where there has been significant opposition to allowing the sale.
Sullivan said "We will work with the Congress on the appropriate timing for getting" the warplanes to Turkey. But he could not "speculate on the precise day it's going to happen."
Although NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson were heavily engaged in the negotiations with Erdoğan, Sullivan stressed "significant recent" U.S. involvement.
As for the effort by Erdoğan to link Türkiye's EU aspirations with the Swedish-NATO question, Sullivan said Biden has "long" supported Türkiye entering the European Union.
However, that would take "discussions of the necessary reforms and steps relative to democratic resilience that every prospective applicant to the European Union goes through."
"So, as far as we're concerned, these issues are not connected," he said.
