Turkey will back Sweden's Nato bid in return for EU membership: Erdogan
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Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his country has been waiting at EU's door for 50 years.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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ISTANBUL – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday said he would back Sweden’s Nato candidacy
The latest twist in the long-running saga over Sweden’s bid to win Mr Erdogan’s backing came on the eve of a Nato summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, at which Western leaders want to showcase unity in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Mr Erdogan was due to meet Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Vilnius later on Monday.
The Turkish leader said the same leaders who were blocking Turkey’s EU membership wanted him to back Sweden’s Nato candidacy.
“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,” he said at a televised media appearance.
“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.”
Mr Erdogan added that “this is what I told” United States President Joe Biden when the two leaders spoke by phone on Sunday.
‘Not an ordinary country’
Turkey first applied to be a member of the European Economic Community – a predecessor to the EU – in 1987. It became an EU candidate country in 1999 and formally launched membership negotiations with the bloc in 2005.
The talks stalled in 2016 over European concerns about Turkish human rights violations.
“I would like to underline one reality. Turkey has been waiting at the EU’s front door for 50 years,” Mr Erdogan said.
He added: “I have to make this statement in Vilnius because this is what I believe. Our nation has expectations. We cannot deal with these expectations any longer. It has been more than 50 years now. We are Turkey and not an ordinary country.”
Mr Erdogan’s demand is one that European policymakers are likely to deem impossible to fulfil.
“Accession of new members to Nato and the separate process of the enlargement of the EU and the EU accession track are two separate processes,” a European Commission spokesman said in Brussels.
“The EU has a very structured process of enlargement and there is a very clear set of steps,” she said. “You cannot link two processes.”
Mr Erdogan had previously voiced frustrations with Sweden’s alleged failure to keep its promise to deal with suspected Kurdish militants allegedly “roaming the streets” of Stockholm. He mentioned this only briefly in his remarks on Monday.
“We want the promises given to us to be kept and our determination on this is the same,” he said. AFP, BLOOMBERG
