Twice on the same day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan managed to stun the West: First with an additional requirement for Sweden's NATO membership and then with a surprise last-minute compromise. At a news conference before leaving Istanbul for the NATO summit in Vilnius, he had raised another condition for Sweden's NATO membership. Puzzled by this move, Brussels rejected Erdogan's demand, underlining that NATO and the EU are separate processes. Turkey's EU Journey and human rights violationsNegotiations about Ankara's EU accession, which began in Brussels in 2005, have failed to make concrete progress. So there is a lot more Ankara needs to do for the EU accession process than approve Sweden's NATO membership.

Source: Washington Post July 11, 2023 20:26 UTC