Turkey will ratify the NATO membership of Sweden and Finland if the two Scandinavian countries take “necessary measures”, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday during a meeting with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, AFP reported.

“President Erdoğan stressed that the pace and timing of the ratification process (…) will be determined by the steps that these countries have yet to take,” the Turkish presidency said in a statement after a closed-door meeting in Istanbul. door.

The Turkish head of state, who is scheduled to receive Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Ankara on Tuesday, has been blocking Sweden and Finland from joining NATO since May. Turkey accuses the two northern countries of giving special protection to Kurdish fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), whom Ankara considers terrorists.

To overcome Turkey’s objections, the three countries signed a memorandum on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Madrid in June, citing Ankara’s extradition requests in particular.

Jens Stoltenberg “welcomed the significant and concrete steps already taken by the two countries to implement the memorandum and emphasized that their membership will strengthen NATO,” the alliance said in a press release issued Friday evening.

In Istanbul on Thursday, NATO’s secretary general urged Turkey to host Stockholm and Helsinki as part of the alliance to “send a clear message to Russia” at a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

Currently, 28 of the 30 member states of the North Atlantic Alliance have ratified the accession of the two Nordic countries, which must be approved unanimously. Apart from Turkey, only Hungary has not yet expressed its final agreement.