Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke about the approval of Sweden’s accession to NATO by the Turkish parliament and the issue of the purchase of F16s from the US upon his return from Hungary where he met with the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, as reported by the SKAI correspondent from Istanbul, Manolis Kostidis.

“As you know, we sent Sweden’s NATO membership candidacy protocol to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The subject of Sweden also came up during our conversation with the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden. We also discussed the F-16 issue between us and the US,” Erdogan said.

In particular, referring to what was shared with the American president regarding the F16s, the Turkish president claimed that Joe Biden assured him that “you pass it in Parliament and I will pass it in Congress in the same way.”

“US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan should carry out this process simultaneously. If we work on it at the same time, we will be able to pass it in the parliament much easier,” said the Turkish president.
Continuing, Erdogan also addressed the issue of Canada and defense procurement, saying that “another complex issue regarding the parliamentary process is the negative attitude of Canada and some allies on defense procurement. All of these are interconnected.”

“I believe that the positive developments that we expect both on the US F-16 issue and on the fulfillment of Canada’s promises will accelerate our parliament’s positive view of the matter. On the other hand, Sweden made promises to us in Vilnius. We expect them to be fulfilled and we are closely monitoring the developments”, added the Turkish president.

Asked about the EU’s recent decisions regarding the enlargement and accession negotiations of Ukraine and Moldova, as well as Georgia’s candidacy status decisions when Turkey has been waiting at the door of the EU for years, Erdogan said “giving them status candidacy does not mean that they will become members of the European Union. The process will be initiated and they will also find themselves in a deadlock. None of these countries is Turkey. The European Union must carefully assess Turkey’s position from now on.”

“It is wrong that Turkey, which is more ready to join the European Union than many member states, remains waiting at the door for years due to political obstacles. While Turkey’s strategic and economic potential demands that it should have already gained full membership in the European Union, we have been at an impasse for years with various excuses. The processes we have experienced in recent years have revealed once again how important and how influential Turkey is. The EU must now abandon this mistake. Perhaps, during the Hungarian presidency, this issue will be discussed in a very different way and a new step will be taken accordingly,” the Turkish president concluded.