The presidents of Turkey and the US agreed in a telephone call on Sunday to have a one-on-one meeting at the NATO summit in Vilnius
He continued the “bargaining” for F-16 fighters with Joe Biden Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday ahead of the summit of the NATO leaders in Vilnius, raising the issue of Turkey’s accession to the EU to the US president, while the US wants him to immediately close the issue of Sweden’s accession to NATO.
The presidents of Turkey and the US agreed on Sunday in a phone call to have a one-on-one meeting at the Alliance summit in Vilnius.
The US president reportedly stated that Turkey wants to modernize the F-16, and his own wish is to strengthen the military capacity of Ankara and Athens and in this context to strengthen NATO, by “allowing Sweden to join NATO”.
The White House announced that Joe Biden is “looking forward” to Sweden joining NATO “in the near future” and considered that it is “likely” that Turkey and Hungary will change their stance at the Vilnius summit.
The two leaders also discussed Turkey’s EU accession process and Ukraine’s position vis-Ã -vis NATO during the conversation, Anatoli news agency reports.
Underscoring that Turkey was sincere about joining the EU, Erdogan specifically stated that “Ankara wants to revive its accession process for full inclusion in the bloc”.
“He added that Turkey wanted EU leaders and the bloc’s leadership to give a clear and strong message of support for Turkey’s membership during the Vilnius summit.”
Ankara has not seen sufficient progress from Sweden to support its application for NATO membership, Tayyip Erdogan warned Biden in his phone call with Biden.
He also said that “it wouldn’t be right” to link Sweden’s NATO membership to the sale of F-16 jets to Turkey, while thanking his American counterpart for supporting Ankara in its desire to buy new fighter jets from Washington.
“Erdogan stated that Sweden has taken some steps in the right direction by making changes to anti-terror legislation,” Turkey’s Communications Directorate said in a statement after the bilateral call.
The Turkish President and the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson are meeting today in Vilnius. But the key to the issue may lie in Washington, where Swedish Prime Minister Christensen was received Wednesday by Joe Biden, analysts said.
Source :Skai
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