NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will be pushing Türkiye, a vital NATO member of 70 years, to ratify the applications of Finland and Sweden at the same time during an upcoming visit to offer support after the earthquakes.

Stoltenberg is set to fly to Ankara on Thursday and also head to the region devastated by the earthquakes last week. He will hold talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

During the visit, Stoltenberg intends to "express my solidarity, my condolences and continue" the discussions with the Turkish leaders on how NATO can provide further "relief support and alleviate the suffering and the consequences of the terrible earthquake."

He said he closed the NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels by asking them to provide more strategic airlift, as well as to bring more tents and humanitarian aid.

In the meantime, Türkiye's NATO counterparts have been pleading with Ankara to sign off on Sweden and Finland's stalled bid to become members.

"I have urged them for many months to ratify both at the same time," Stoltenberg told reporters earlier on Wednesday following the Brussels summit.

"However, at the end of the day it is Türkiye's decision on whether it will ratify both countries at the same time or not," he added. "That is a Turkish decision."

President Erdoğan is particularly objecting to Sweden's application because it harbors members of PKK whom Ankara, alongside the European Union and the United States registers as a terrorist organization.

A day earlier, Stoltenberg argued "the main question" wasn’t the ratification of the two at the same time but that "they are both ratified as members as soon as possible."

"I'm confident that both will be full members and we are working hard to get both ratified as soon as possible," the NATO secretary general had said.

Sweden and Finland both applied to join the trans-Atlantic military alliance last year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the process has been held up by Türkiye and its objections to Stockholm over the harboring and toleration of terrorists, as well as their sympathizers. Officials repeatedly expressed concerns Sweden was not "sufficiently committed to fighting" terrorist organizations like the PKK, its Syrian affiliate YPG and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).

Stoltenberg’s remarks came nearly two weeks after Ankara said it might be willing to accept Finland as NATO member and leave Sweden in the dust.

Türkiye’s cold shoulder is due to friction that has increased in recent weeks, not least after a protest in Stockholm when a far-right extremist politician burned a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, in front of its embassy, which only piled on demonstrations by PKK terrorist sympathizers targeting Erdoğan in prior weeks.

Sweden’s accession process is currently on ice and progress is unlikely before Türkiye’s presidential election, slated for May but could be postponed due to massive earthquakes that left at least 35,000 dead.

Also in Brussels, Finnish Defense Minister Mikko Savola too echoed Stoltenberg in saying it would be "better for all NATO countries if Sweden and Finland join the alliance together" and "not one after the other."

"It is better for the planning, we have really close cooperation with Sweden, which is our closest partner," Savola was quoted as saying despite a previous initiative from Helsinki in the wake of growing tensions with Stockholm to stay on Erdoğan’s good graces.

On Tuesday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson too contended joining separately would be "unfortunate" for the Nordic nations.

"But I have respect for Finland, I know what Finland wants. And only Türkiye makes decisions for Türkiye," he said.

Ankara has been resolute in its demand from Sweden for tougher counterterrorism laws and terrorist extraditions, in addition to the lifting of an arms embargo.

A trilateral pact inked on the margins of a NATO summit in Madrid in June 2022 bound Sweden and Finland to a series of commitments aimed at assuaging Ankara’s security concerns while Türkiye has warned the process would hit a dead end if the promises were not kept.

Regardless of its timing depending on Türkiye and Hungary, the Swedish government is moving to present a NATO accession bill to parliament in March.