Moscow has no illusions that Ankara may be removed from its obligations within NATO in this regard with the accession of Sweden in the alliance, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said Maria Zakharova on Rossiya-24 TV channel.

“Turkey is a member of NATO and votes, takes decisions, takes initiatives for the NATO agenda. We must not forget this, so I urge you to remember this. Turkey is a member of NATO, which also has NATO infrastructure on its territory. Therefore, there should be no illusions that Turkey is somehow moving away from its NATO obligations,” he said.

According to the diplomat, “the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO it changes the balance of power in the European region and poses threats both to the security of the Russian Federation and security in general, given the destructive power that NATO has.” “This, of course, will affect, as the Russian leadership has repeatedly said, the development of appropriate decisions,” Zakharova added according to TASS.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a one-on-one meeting under the auspices of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Vilnius on Monday. During this meeting they agreed that Turkey would start the process of ratifying Sweden’s application for NATO membership in Parliament.

The agreement includes six points, in which it is stated that Sweden has made the necessary changes in its legislation and in the past year has significantly strengthened “the fight against terrorist events in the activities of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and also unblocked the export of military equipment to Turkey. These goals were made concrete during last year’s NATO summit in Madrid.