The Prime Minister Ulf Christerson said Wednesday that Sweden still wants to join NATO before or during the Alliance’s summit in Vilnius next month, although it is not certain that it will be able to do so by then.

Sweden and Finland simultaneously applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Finland became a member of the Alliance in April but the process is slower in the case of Sweden. Sweden has set its sights on joining the Alliance at the July 11-12 summit, and while it has strong support from other members, including the US, Turkey and Hungary have yet to give their approval.

“Sweden will become a member of NATO,” Kristersson said in an interview with state broadcaster SVT. “No one can promise that it will happen specifically in Vilnius or immediately before Vilnius, even though that was our ambition from the beginning. And this is an ambition that we share with every other NATO country.”

Turkey claims that Sweden hosts members of what it calls terrorist organizations on its soil – a charge Sweden denies – and has sought their extradition as a step towards validating its membership. She has also expressed her anger at the anti-Turkish protests that have taken place in the Scandinavian country.

Meanwhile, Sweden has said that freedom of speech is enshrined in its constitution and that it has met all the conditions set out in the agreement with Turkey and Finland reached a year ago.

Swedish and Turkish officials met on June 14 and had what Sweden’s chief negotiator described as good talks, and are expected to have another high-level meeting in Brussels hosted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ahead of the summit in Vilnius.

“We have also said that we respect that it is Turkey that makes decisions and it is good that we now have another meeting … and maybe we can deal with the issue ahead of the Vilnius summit in this kind of discussion,” Christerson said.