President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey’s parliament would begin ratifying Finland’s NATO membership, clearing the biggest obstacle to expanding the Western defense alliance amid the war in Ukraine, although he delayed approving Sweden’s bid.

Speaking in Ankara alongside his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto, Erdogan said Helsinki had won Turkey’s approval after taking concrete steps to fulfill promises to act against what Ankara considers terrorists and allow defense exports.

The three countries signed a deal in Madrid last year that included steps to address Turkey’s concerns about membership, but Ankara said Sweden did not go far enough.

Erdogan spoke by phone with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and said Turkey is determined to continue talks with Sweden, with progress directly linked to concrete steps it takes, the Turkish presidency said.

Newcomers must be ratified by the parliaments of all 30 NATO member states. Finland will be the first enlargement since North Macedonia joined the transatlantic pact in 2020.

“We have decided to initiate the ratification process of Finland’s accession to NATO in our parliament,” Erdogan told reporters after meeting with Niinisto, adding that he hoped parliament would approve the bid before the May 14 election.

Niinisto said he welcomed the decision and called it “very important” for Finland, which shares a long border with Russia. He added that it is important that neighboring Sweden also joins the alliance.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Björstrom said Sweden still hopes to be accepted into NATO before the alliance’s meeting in Vilnius in July.

“Our partners are supporting us both so that we can become members of NATO as soon as possible and to ensure our security until we become full members,” he said.

“It’s a matter of when Sweden becomes a member, it’s not a matter of if,” he said.

Obstacle to issue

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO last year, but faced unexpected objections from Turkey, which joined in 1952.

Ankara claims Stockholm harbors members of what Turkey calls terrorist groups, including the Kurdish PKK militant group, a charge Sweden denies.

Turkey wants Sweden to extradite a number of people it considers terrorists, but some of those requests have been rejected.

Billstrom said those cases have been settled by the courts. “There will be decisions that can be positive, but they can also be negative from Turkey’s point of view, and that’s how things go,” he said.

Apart from Hungary, whose ruling party has said it supports the two Scandinavian countries but has delayed formal steps to approve them, Turkey is the only NATO member that has yet to give the green light to Finland and Sweden.

Ankara suspended talks in January after a far-right politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy book of the Koran in Stockholm, but lower-level talks resumed in Brussels last week.

Amid heightened tensions with Sweden, Erdogan made it clear in January that Turkey could approve Helsinki before Stockholm. Washington and other NATO members had hoped that the two Scandinavian countries would join the alliance at a NATO summit scheduled for July 11 in Vilnius.

Erdogan accepted Finland’s membership nearly a year after he shocked members with a veto threat and two months before elections considered the most important in Turkey’s history.

The Turkish parliament is expected to ratify Finland before the mid-April recess ahead of parliamentary and presidential votes scheduled for May 14.