ANKARA, TURKIYE (AP) – Sweden’s new Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday in a bid to clinch Turkish approval for his country’s bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Sweden and Finland abandoned their longstanding policies of military nonalignment and applied for membership in the military alliance after the invasion of Ukraine in February, fearing that Russian President Vladimir Putin might target them next.
But Turkiye, which joined NATO in 1952, has been holding off on endorsing their bids, accusing Sweden – and to a lesser degree Finland of ignoring Ankara’s security concerns.