Ankara will support Sweden's membership in NATO if the European Union (EU) reopens Turkey's EU membership negotiations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today.
"First, let us open the way for Turkey to join the EU, and then we will pave the way for Sweden, as we did for Finland," Erdogan told reporters ahead of the annual NATO summit in Vilnius.
Negotiations between Turkey and the EU have been stalled for several years.
Turkey applied for membership in the European Economic Community in 1987 and the European Union in 1999, but EU accession negotiations, which began in 2005, have been plagued by a number of difficult problems and a lack of enthusiasm from key EU countries.
Erdogan repeated today that the Turkish green light for Sweden's entry into the Atlantic alliance depends "on the achievement of the points contained in the tripartite agreement" signed last year at the NATO summit in Madrid between Turkey, Sweden and Finland.
The President of Turkey and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson will meet today for the final negotiations on Sweden's membership in NATO, ahead of the alliance summit in the capital of Lithuania.
The meeting, organized by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, should, as he hopes, enable the lifting of Turkey's veto blocking Sweden's entry into the Atlantic alliance from May 2022.
Turkey's president is blocking Sweden's bid, accusing Stockholm of harboring Turkish opposition and Kurdish activists from movements Ankara considers "terrorist".
Along with Hungary, Turkey is the only one of the 31 NATO countries that has not yet ratified Sweden's membership. Hungary said it would give its consent if Turkey did so.
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