Tayyip Erdogan says will meet Biden on sidelines of NATO meeting

• Erdogan will meet Biden on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid.
• The two leaders’ relationship has been cold since Biden’s election.
• Sweden and Finland have asked to join NATO, but Turkey is against them joining the Western military alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Tuesday that he would meet US President Joe Biden in Madrid on the sidelines of the NATO summit to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Analysts believe that the conference could play a pivotal role in overcoming Turkey’s opposition to Sweden and Finland’s requests to join the Western defence alliance in response to the war.

Since Biden’s election, the two leaders’ relationship has been cold due to US worries over Erdogan’s human rights record.

“We spoke with Mr.Biden this morning and he expressed his desire to get together tonight or tomorrow. We said it was possible,” Erdogan remarked.

Before heading to Madrid for talks that would begin with his meeting with the leaders of the two Nordic nations and the NATO secretary general, he spoke with reporters.

Erdogan stated that he would await the outcome of Monday’s preparatory talks in Brussels before deciding if Sweden and Finland had done enough to overcome his resistance to their inclusion in the military alliance.

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Turkey is a NATO member and might veto the applications of both countries at the summit.

“We are a 70-year-old member of NATO. Turkey is not a country that randomly joined NATO,” Erdogan stated.

“We will see what point they (Finland and Sweden) have reached,” he continues. “We do not want empty words. We want results.”

Ankara has accused Finland and, in particular, Sweden of providing sanctuary to banned Kurdish terrorists, whose decades-long struggle against the Turkish state has cost tens of thousands of lives.

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