Turkey will back Sweden's NATO bid if EU membership bid progresses, says Erdogan

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday released a statement saying that he would only support Sweden's NATO candidacy if the European Union resumes membership talks with Ankara.

His remarks came at the time of a landmark NATO summit where Western leaders will showcase unity in the face of Russia's war on Ukraine.

Erdogan has been intercepting Sweden's acquisition for months because of what according to him was Stockholm's negligence to clamp down on Kurdish extremists who have been pursuing a bloodstained mutiny against the Turkish state.

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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted to Erdogan's demand calling it 'unrelated' to the issue of giving Sweden the security guarantees afforded by the world's most powerful military organisation.

Erdogan, on Monday, asserted that many of the same leaders who were blockading Turkey's EU membership now wanted him to support Sweden's candidacy.

“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Erdogan said.

"Almost all the NATO members are EU members. I now am addressing these countries, which are making Turkey wait for more than 50 years, and I will address them again in Vilnius," Erdogan said moments before boarding his flight for the summit in the Lithuanian capital.

"First, open the way to Turkey's membership of the European Union, and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we had opened it for Finland."

He further added that this is what he "told United States President Joe Biden" when the two leaders had a telephonic conversation on Sunday.

Scholz said Erdogan's new demand merges two unrelated issues

Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community in the year 1987.

It then got converted into an EU candidate country in the year 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in the year 2005.

The talks paused over human rights violation concerns from the European countries that surfaced amid a sweeping crackdown launched by Erdogan after surviving a failed 2016 military coup.

Scholz said Erdogan's new demand merged two unrelated issues.

"Sweden meets all the requirements for NATO membership," he said in Berlin. "The other question is one that is not connected with it and that is why I do not think it should be seen as a connected issue."

The Turkish leader did not mention the dispute with Sweden on Monday.

"We want the promises given to us to be kept and our determination on this is the same," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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