ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he would meet US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Madrid to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the expansion of the bloc into the two Nordic states.
Analysts believe the meeting could play a key role in breaking Turkey’s resistance to a bid by Sweden and Finland to join the Western Defense Alliance in response to the war.
The two leaders have had a warm relationship since Biden’s election because of US concerns about human rights under Erdogan.
Biden and Erdogan last met briefly in October on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome.
“We spoke to Mr. Biden this morning and he expressed a desire to get together tonight or tomorrow. We said it was possible,” Erdogan said.
He was speaking to reporters before leaving for Madrid for talks, which will begin with his meeting with the leaders of the two Nordic countries and the NATO Secretary General.
Erdogan said he wanted to see the results of Monday’s preliminary talks in Brussels before deciding whether Sweden and Finland had done enough to raise their objections to their membership of the military alliance.
Turkey is a member of NATO and can veto applications of both countries at the summit.
“We are a 70-year-old member of NATO. Turkey is not a country that suddenly joined NATO,” Erdogan said.
“We will see where they (Finland and Sweden) reach,” he said. “We don’t want empty words. We want results.”
Ankara has accused Finland, and especially Sweden, of providing safe havens to Kurdish militants who have been rebelling against the Turkish state for decades.
The Turkish leader also called on the two countries to lift an arms embargo imposed on Turkey in 2019 over Ankara’s military offensive in Syria.
The two countries were open to the possibility at the NATO meeting that Turkey could raise its objections only after the summit ends on Thursday.
Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said: “We have made progress. Certainly that is the case.”
“We set out to be something positive today, but for it to take more time,” she said. “We must be patient and continue the discussion even after the summit.”
Finnish President Souli Niinisto said he was “neither optimistic nor pessimistic” at this stage.
“We will go into discussions with Erdogan this afternoon with an open mind,” he told Finnish media.
Erdogan’s ability to maintain close working relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin while supporting Ukraine’s war effort has made him a key player in the conflict.
But those ties have also complicated Biden and his ties with the NATO bloc.
Washington has approved Ankara to take delivery of an advanced Russian missile defense system in 2019.
The purchase saw the United States omit Turkey from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and imposed trade sanctions on its military procurement agency.
But Washington has indicated it may be ready to move on from the controversy.
Biden’s administration has jeopardized the prospect of Ankara supplying older generation F-16 jets that could replenish Turkey’s aging Air Force fleet.
“The most important issue is the F-16 issue. It’s still on the table,” Erdogan said of his upcoming talks with Biden.
FacebookTwitterinstagramKu APPyoutube