According to a joint statement after a meeting organized on Friday in Stockholm, Turkey appreciated the “progress” of Sweden and Finland regarding the accession of the Nordic countries to NATO, AFP reported, citing Agerpres.

In a statement, the three countries “welcomed the intensification of cooperation (…) and the progress made by Finland and Sweden in the implementation of the memorandum” signed on the sidelines of the Madrid summit in June.

“Sweden is largely abiding by the trilateral memorandum and moving towards NATO,” Sweden’s head of accession negotiations, Oskar Stenström, said on Twitter at the end of a meeting announced earlier this month by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden submitted a joint application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in May, abandoning decades of military nonalignment.

This document, which must be unanimously adopted by the 30 NATO member states, has been ratified by all except Turkey and Hungary.

Ankara has accused the two countries, primarily Sweden, of harboring militants close to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian-based People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Turkey considers terrorists.