President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday received NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Istanbul.
The closed-door meeting was held in Dolmabahçe Presidential Working Office in Istanbul's Beşiktaş district.
Ankara said in a statement that during Stoltenberg's visit to Istanbul, he and Erdoğan discussed Greece's provocations against Türkiye, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war and a trilateral memorandum that Türkiye signed in June with Finland and Sweden on the two Nordic countries' bids to join NATO.
Greece is responsible for the ongoing escalation with Ankara in the region, Erdoğan told Stoltenberg.
"It was not Türkiye that increased tensions in the region, and it would be useful to direct Greece to engage in dialogue," Erdoğan said at the meeting with Stoltenberg.
On Finland and Sweden, Erdoğan said their actions would determine the pace and time of the process to ratify their accession to the alliance.
Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar met with Stoltenberg, following a joint visit to the Martyrs’ Memorial and the historical Gallipoli peninsula in northwestern Çanakkale province.
During the meeting, in which regional defense, security and NATO issues were discussed, Türkiye’s views were expressed by Akar.
The defense minister also stated that Türkiye will continue to fulfill its responsibilities in NATO, as it has done so far.
Stoltenberg emphasized that Türkiye is an important ally in NATO and thanked Ankara for its active role in reopening the grain corridor.
The NATO chief also held a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Thursday.
"Finland and Sweden have delivered on their commitment to Turkey. They have become strong partners in our joint fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," Stoltenberg told reporters in Istanbul after talks with Çavuşoğlu.
"It’s time to welcome Finland and Sweden as full members of NATO. Their accession will make our alliance stronger and our people safer," Stoltenberg said. "In these dangerous times, it’s even more important to finalize their accession, to prevent any misunderstanding or miscalculation in Moscow."
However, Çavuşoğlu said the schedule for accepting them as new members would depend on when Türkiye’s demands, agreed upon in the joint memorandum, were fulfilled. The 10-article memorandum was unveiled ahead of a NATO summit in June after Türkiye had threatened for weeks to veto Sweden and Finland’s applications.
Finland and Sweden applied for membership of the world’s biggest security alliance in the months after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February. In doing so, they abandoned longstanding policies of military nonalignment out of concern that Russian President Vladimir Putin might target them next.
However, Türkiye, a NATO member for over 70 years, voiced objections to the membership bids, criticizing the two countries for tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups. Sweden and Finland struck a deal with Türkiye in June, and Erdoğan has warned Türkiye will not give the nod to their memberships until Ankara’s concerns are addressed.
The trilateral agreement stipulates that Sweden and Finland will not provide support to the YPG, the PKK’s Syrian offshoot, and the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup attempt in Türkiye. The deal also said Ankara extends full support to Sweden and Finland against threats to their national security. The Nordic countries have both agreed to address Ankara’s pending deportation or extradition requests for terror suspects.
All 30 NATO member countries must officially ratify the accession protocol for Finland and Sweden to join the alliance. Only the parliaments of Türkiye and Hungary have yet to do so.