VILNIUS, 10 Jul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday introduced a new condition for approving Sweden\u2019s membership in NATO, calling on European countries to \u201copen the way\u201d for Turkey to join the European Union.
\nThe surprise announcement by Erdogan before departing to a NATO summit in Lithuania\u2019s capital added new uncertainty to Sweden\u2019s bid to become the alliance\u2019s 32nd member, which Turkey initially blocked saying Sweden was too soft on Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers security threats.
\nIt was the first time that Erdogan linked his country\u2019s ambition to join the EU with Sweden\u2019s efforts to become a NATO member.
\n\u201cTurkey has been waiting at the door of the European Union for over 50 years now, and almost all of the NATO member countries are now members of the European Union,\u201d Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul. \u201cI am making this call to these countries that have kept Turkey waiting at the gates of the European Union for more than 50 years.\u201d
\n\u201cCome and open the way for Turkey\u2019s membership in the European Union. When you pave the way for Turkey, we\u2019ll pave the way for Sweden as we did for Finland,\u201d he added.
\nEarlier, Erdogan\u2019s office said he told U.S. President Joe Biden during a telephone call Sunday that Turkey wanted a \u201cclear and strong\u201d message of support for Turkey\u2019s EU ambitions from the NATO leaders meeting in Vilnius. The White House readout of the Biden-Erdogan call did not mention the issue of Turkish membership in the EU.
\nErdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson were expected to meet later Monday in Vilnius.
\nAsked about Erdogan\u2019s comments, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he supports Turkey\u2019s ambition to join the EU but noted that it wasn\u2019t among the conditions listed in an agreement that Sweden, Finland and Turkey signed at last year\u2019s NATO summit in Madrid.
\nStoltenberg reiterated that Sweden had met those conditions and said he thinks it is \u201cstill possible to have a positive decision\u201d on the country\u2019s pending membership during this week\u2019s summit in Lithuania.
\nEU Commission spokesperson Dana Spinant said that \u201cyou cannot link the two processes in regards to Turkey.\u201d
\nTurkey is a candidate to join the EU, but democratic backsliding during Erdogan\u2019s presidency, disputes with EU-member Cyprus and other issues have held up the country\u2019s progress toward admission in the 27-nation bloc.
\nHowever, as a member of NATO, Erdogan\u2019s government has postponed ratifying Sweden\u2019s accession to the alliance, saying the administration in Stockholm needs to do more to crack down on Kurdish militants and other groups. A series of anti-Turkey and anti-Islam protests in Sweden\u2019s capital raised doubts that an agreement to satisfy Turkey\u2019s demands could be reached before the alliance\u2019s summit.
\nTurkey\u2019s delays on Sweden\u2019s accession has irritated other NATO allies including the United States. Biden\u2019s national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed Sunday that Biden and Erdogan had spoken earlier that day about Sweden\u2019s NATO membership among other issues and had agreed to meet in Vilnius for further talks. Sullivan didn\u2019t mention the EU membership issue.
\nHe said the White House is confident Sweden will join the alliance.
\n\u201cIf it happens after Vilnius \u2014 we\u2019re confident it will happen,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t regard this as something that is fundamentally in doubt. This is a matter of timing. The sooner the better.\u201d (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VILNIUS, 10 Jul: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday introduced a new condition for approving Sweden\u2019s membership in NATO, calling on European countries to \u201copen the way\u201d for Turkey to join the European Union. The surprise announcement by Erdogan before departing to a NATO summit in Lithuania\u2019s capital added new uncertainty to Sweden\u2019s bid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-220100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}