Turkey will not be affected by “pressures” and will oppose Sweden’s accession to NATO if it is a “burden” for the Atlantic alliance, the Turkish foreign minister said today.

“Turkey rejects recourse to pressure. We act based on our principles,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters and called on Sweden to “do the right things” to be able to join NATO.

“The question of whether Sweden’s NATO membership is a burden or an advantage in terms of strategy and security is increasingly a matter of debate,” the minister added a week ahead of the annual NATO summit scheduled for July 11 and 12 in Vilnius.

Until then, a meeting between Sweden and Turkey is scheduled to take place the day after tomorrow, Thursday, in Brussels, with the participation of foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs and national security advisers.

As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, “the goal is to make progress in completing Sweden’s NATO membership,” ahead of the Alliance’s July summit in Vilnius

Ankara, which has been blocking Sweden’s NATO membership since May 2022, criticized the country last week after a copy of the Koran was burned in Stockholm – an act that was “strongly condemned” and described as “Islamophobic” by the Swedish government.