SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
NATO chief to visit Turkey for Erdogan inauguration
Brussels, June 2 (AFP) Jun 02, 2023
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg will visit Turkey at the weekend to attend the inauguration of re-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and hold talks with him, the alliance said Friday.

The trip comes as pressure builds on Erdogan to drop his opposition to Sweden joining NATO.

Stoltenberg on Thursday said during a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Norway that he would soon visit Ankara to work towards Sweden joining "as early as possible", after speaking with Erdogan by phone earlier this week.

The NATO statement said Stoltenberg would attend Erdogan's inauguration on Saturday. The Turkish president was last week re-elected to serve another five-year term.

The statement said the visit would extend into Sunday and Stoltenberg would "have bilateral meetings with President Erdogan and with senior Turkish officials".

NATO member Turkey has dragged its feet over admitting Sweden to the military alliance. It and Hungary are the only two member countries yet to ratify Sweden's membership bid.

Finland formally joined the alliance in April.

Erdogan has accused Sweden of being a haven for "terrorists", especially members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom on Thursday said his country has fulfilled all its commitments to join, and "it is time for Turkey and Hungary to start the ratification of the Swedish membership to NATO".

Many of the ministers who attended the Oslo meeting said they wanted to see Sweden join before a NATO summit in Lithuania's capital Vilnius on July 11-12.

Stoltenberg has said that goal is "absolutely possible".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose country is the dominant member of NATO, also said on Thursday that "we fully anticipate" Sweden joining by the Vilnius summit.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
Space Force taps five firms to develop secure global tactical satcom solutions
SES Secures 5 Year Army Contract for Global Tactical Satellite Communications
How AI and Data Analytics Are Transforming User Experience in Online Platforms

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Major climate-GDP study under review after facing challenge
Putin decree allows Russia to increase greenhouse gas emissions
Sticky business: India's purchases of Russian oil

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Dogs of war: China touts killer robot 'wolves'
US government gets a year of ChatGPT Enterprise for $1
Russia hints at deploying mid-range missiles after ending INF moratorium

24/7 News Coverage
SMOS mission reveals 15-year global forest carbon storage trends
Pacific microstate sells first passports to fund climate action
Great Barrier Reef suffers most widespread bleaching on record



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.