NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday that the time has come for Türkiye to approve Sweden’s membership to the military alliance. Stoltenberg has long sought to convince Türkiye to accept Sweden’s membership while Ankara repeatedly expressed concerns over the Nordic country’s tolerance of terrorist groups, namely the PKK and Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ), as well as the country regularly allowing the desecration of the Quran under police protection.

The NATO chief was speaking at a news conference ahead of a meeting of foreign ministers of the bloc, under the shadow of the Palestine-Israel and Russia-Ukraine conflicts. "Sweden has delivered on what they promised and now the time has come for Turkey to finalize the accession process," Stoltenberg said.

Türkiye and Hungary are the only NATO members not yet to have ratified Sweden joining the alliance more than 18 months after it applied for membership. The Turkish Parliament started to debate Sweden’s bid to join this month after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched the process following a deal at a NATO summit in July. NATO’s other 29 allies had hoped to be able to formally welcome Sweden into the alliance at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels this week. However, the process is still at the committee level in the Turkish Parliament.