ISTANBUL/VILNIUS, July 10. /TASS/. Talks between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson will be held in Vilnius on Monday less than a day before the NATO summit kicks off.

It is expected that this will be the last attempt to achieve at least some progress on lifting Turkey’s veto on Sweden’s accession to the alliance.

"What is possible and what we are all working to achieve is a positive decision at the summit where Turkiye makes clear that they are ready to ratify, but then we still have some work to do and we are working on that now," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

On July 6 in Brussels, a meeting, mediated by Stoltenberg, was held between the top diplomats, intelligence and security chiefs of Turkey, Sweden and Finland, without achieving any practical results.

In May 2022, Finland and Sweden simultaneously submitted applications to join the US-led military bloc but their accession process was blocked by Turkey when Ankara demanded that the two Nordic countries designate Kurdish organizations active in their jurisdictions as terrorist groups and extradite persons suspected of terrorism or being involved in the attempted 2016 Turkish coup d’etat to Turkey.

Talks between Erdogan, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, then-Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Stoltenberg took place in Madrid on June 28, 2022 before the annual NATO summit. As a result, a memorandum was signed that cleared a path for Sweden and Finland to join NATO. On March 31, 2023, the Turkish parliament approved Finland’s accession to NATO and the country formally joined the North Atlantic Alliance on April 4.