The Turkish head of state had his first phone call on Saturday with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Anderson since the start of the crisis between the two countries over NATO membership.
In a statement released shortly after the talk, Erdogan said he expects “concrete and serious steps from Sweden to show that it shares Turkey’s concerns about the PKK terrorist organization and its expansions into Syria and Iraq”.
He also asked Stockholm to lift restrictions on arms exports to Ankara since October 2019. This comes after Turkey’s military operations in northern Syria and Iraq against positions of the PKK and its Kurdish allies of the YPG, which are supported by the United States against Islamic State. The Turkish president will also hold talks with his Finnish counterpart.
Turkey has created a crisis within NATO by opposing the organization’s expansion to include the two Nordic countries: it accuses them of providing shelter and support to members of the PKK, whom Ankara but also Washington and the European Union classified as a terrorist organisation.
Stockholm and Helsinki officially applied for alliance membership on Monday.