Türkiye has informed NATO that the approval of Sweden's accession bid will not be finalized by next week, when the military bloc's foreign ministers will attend a meeting, sources said Wednesday.
Last week, Parliament's foreign affairs commission delayed a vote on Sweden's NATO membership bid in order to hold further talks on the subject.
The commission will likely resume its debate on the matter on Tuesday or Wednesday, one of the sources said. NATO foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on those days, Nov. 28-29, a gathering that some in the Western defense bloc had hoped would mark Sweden's accession.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry was not immediately available for comment.
Sweden and Finland requested to join NATO in May of last year in the face of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Sweden believes it has done everything to address Türkiye's concerns, but its case for membership in NATO rests now in lawmakers' hands.
The bill must be approved by Parliament's foreign affairs commission before a vote by the full general assembly. Erdoğan would then sign it into law.
While saying Ankara expected more from Sweden in combating the PKK terrorist group, Erdoğan said this month that he would try to facilitate the ratification as much as possible.
Fuat Oktay, the former vice president who now heads the foreign affairs commission, said earlier this month that the issue was not so urgent for Türkiye and, thus, would be included in its regular agenda rather than be discussed in an extraordinary session. "Sweden's NATO membership is just one of the international agreements on our agenda waiting for ratification," Oktay told a lawmakers meeting on Tuesday.
