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Turkey will support Sweden’s NATO bid if the European Union (EU) resumes long-stalled membership talks with Ankara. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Erdogan said this on the eve of the NATO summit in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

Before leaving the country to attend a NATO summit in Lithuania, Erdogan told reporters that Turkey must first open its doors to EU membership. Türkiye will then proceed with Sweden’s accession to NATO.

This Turkish leader said that he told US President Joe Biden the same thing on the phone on Sunday.

The leaders who blocked Turkey’s EU membership want him to support Sweden’s NATO candidacy, Erdogan said, adding, “I want to emphasize the reality.” Türkiye has been waiting at the door of the EU for 50 years.

Erdogan said that almost all NATO members are EU members. I am now talking about these countries, which made Turkey wait for more than 50 years. I will speak to them again in Vilnius.

Besides, regarding Ukraine, Erdoğan said that the NATO membership process of Kiev will be easier if the war between Ukraine and Russia ends.

Turkey first applied to become a member of the European Economic Community in 1987. The country became an EU candidate in 1999 and formally began membership talks with the bloc in 2005, but suspended membership talks citing Turkey’s human rights abuses.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning their decades-old Cold War policy of military neutrality in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Finland’s NATO membership was given the green light in April, but Turkey and Hungary have yet to back Sweden.