ANKARA, July 7. /TASS/. Turkey still cannot approve Sweden’s accession to NATO due to its support for terrorists, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday.

"We have supported NATO’s open-door policy. We have approved Finland’s membership. But we cannot support those who welcome terrorists. We expect Sweden to fulfill its commitments," he said.

Ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid, Erdogan held talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, the then Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on June 28, 2022. The talks yielded a memorandum, which was a kind of roadmap for Stockholm and Helsinki’s membership in the alliance. On March 31, Turkey’s parliament approved a protocol on Finland’s admission to NATO but refused to approve Sweden’s membership bid, demanding that Stockholm implement all the provisions of the Madrid memorandum on combating terrorism.

Ankara has also criticized Stockholm for pandering to supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is banned in Turkey, and to Quran-burning actions.