Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has made Sweden’s accession to the NATO alliance dependent on Turkey’s accession to the European Union.

According to the Reuters news agency, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that before the Turkish parliament approves Sweden’s NATO membership, the European Union should open its doors to Turkey in its bloc.

The issue of Turkey’s accession to the European Union has been stalled for the last several years. Discussions on this issue started in 2005 when Uroghan was elected as Prime Minister for the first term.

Since then, relations between Turkey and EU member states have cooled, especially after the failed coup in Turkey in 2016, but have since seen some improvement.

The European Union has to rely on the help of NATO ally Turkey to deal with many issues, especially the migrant problem.

On Monday, Tayyip Erdogan made Sweden’s NATO membership conditional on Turkey joining the EU in an unexpected move.

Before leaving for the NATO meeting in Vilnius, Erdogan said, “I am addressing all the countries that have kept Turkey waiting at the door of the European Union for 50 years.”

He also vowed to reiterate at the meeting that ‘first, let’s open the way for Turkey to join the European Union and then we will open the way for Sweden.’

On the other hand, the spokesperson of the European Commission has said that NATO and EU enlargement are ‘separate systems’.

In response to a question related to Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement, the spokesperson of the European Union said that the matter of joining the bloc of each country is done on the basis of the country’s ability. These two cases cannot be linked to each other.’

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who is already in favor of Turkey joining the European Union, has said that Sweden has fulfilled the necessary conditions for NATO membership.

He said while holding a press conference that ‘it is likely that a decision will come in favor of Sweden in the Vilnius meeting.’

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, leaving the non-aligned organization’s policies.

Finland received a positive signal for NATO membership in April, but Sweden’s membership is still awaiting support from Turkey and Hungary.