ANKARA, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday held a phone conversation over the membership bid of Sweden and Finland.
Erdogan reiterated his stance that steps should be taken to address Turkey's "legitimate concerns" about Sweden and Finland's NATO membership requests, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
Erdogan told Stoltenberg that Turkey wants written assurances from the two Nordic countries in order to make progress in their NATO membership.
He emphasized that they "cannot achieve progress in the process without concrete steps that meet Turkey's rightful expectations, and without giving written commitments to a paradigm shift in the fight against terrorism and defense industry cooperation," the statement said.
Sweden and Finland submitted applications to join NATO in mid-May. Although several NATO countries have already approved the two countries' bid to join the military alliance, the process has proven not to be as straightforward, as Turkey soon raised objections, citing Swedish and Finnish ties with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and other groups Turkey labels as terrorists.
Ankara has also voiced dissatisfaction with the Swedish arms embargo on Turkey. ■
