After blocking Sweden’s bid to join NATO for months, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to send the protocol on Sweden’s accession to the alliance to Turkey’s parliament, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Twitter on July 10.

Stoltenberg said he had met with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, after which the Turkish leader agreed to support Sweden’s accession to NATO.

Sweden’s accession to NATO has already been ratified by 28 out of 30 member states. Previously, only Turkey and Hungary did not support it.

Ankara slowed down the approval of the accession, in particular, because of the issue of Kurdish communities living in Sweden.

Stockholm amended its legislation to increase responsibility for terrorism and agreed to lift the arms embargo on Turkey, but Ankara continued to block Sweden’s application.

Hungary has also said it will ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO, and would “not be the last” to do so.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had earlier demanded that the European Union, an economic bloc using common currency and borderless travel, must admit his country before Sweden would be allowed to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), pulling in clog in the wheel as the military alliance meets to consider requests for new membership.

Sweden is a member of European Union and yet to become a member of NATO; while Turkiye is a vociferous member of NATO but its economy is considered too weak to qualify it for EU membership. While EU is regional economic bloc, NATO is a military defence alliance involving members outside the European Union. Whereas most members of EU are also in NATO, the two bodies are considered totally unrelated.

President Erdogan had previously vetoed entry of new members into NATO and has recently been the last members of the group to approve reception of aspiring members.

As NATO begins its crucial meeting under the watch of the world which is witnessing rising power flex from China and Russia, Sweden and Ukraine are in line to join the group; but President Erdogan insists that his country must be let into the European Union as a precondition for EU members Sweden joining NATO.

Speaking ahead of his departure for Wednesday’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that EU leaders must “open the way for Turkey” to join the bloc.

The surprise demand was swiftly rejected by an EU spokesman. Until now Mr Erdogan had all but abandoned hopes of accession to the bloc.

Mr Erdogan said: “I am calling from here on these countries that are making Turkey wait at the door of the European Union for more than 50 years.

“First, come and open the way for Turkey at the European Union and then we will open the way for Sweden, just as we did for Finland.”

Mr Erdogan said he would repeat the demand on Tuesday at the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital, where the alliance’s leaders will discuss their latest response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the prospects of Ukrainian and Swedish membership.

An EU spokesman said that NATO and EU membership were “separate processes” that could not be linked to one another.

“The accession process for each candidate country is based on the merits of each country,” they said.

In response to Mr Erdogn’s comments, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said he was in favour of Turkey joining the EU, but stressed that Sweden had already met NATO’s requirements for becoming part of that alliance.

“It is still possible to have a positive decision on Sweden in Vilnius,” he said.

Turkey appeared to have abandoned its bid for EU membership following years of paralysis on the issue, and a deep reluctance in Brussels to agree to accession.

The EU has long cited human rights concerns as an obstacle to Turkish membership, while the prospect of Turks being granted free movement throughout the bloc has often been seized upon by Right-wing populist movements across Europe, including pro-Brexit campaigners.

Both Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year in response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s bid was approved in April but Turkey and Hungary, both NATO members, have still not given their backing to Sweden’s application.

Turkey has frequently claimed that Sweden has not given enough reassurances that the two countries are aligned on key security concerns, such as the Turkish government’s campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is proscribed as a terrorist group by Ankara, the EU and the United States.

“Erdogan has introduced new demands and moved the target repeatedly throughout this process, but trying to put pressure on the EU over a NATO matter is rather spectacular,” said Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University.

“However, I think that we should interpret his remarks with caution for now. They could signal everything from setting the stage for a face-saving OK to Sweden to an attempt to sabotage the NATO enlargement process by raising impossible demands.

“What can be said is that if he were to actually condition Swedish NATO accession on a reboot of the Turkish EU accession process, then Sweden is unlikely to become a NATO ally any time soon.”