Ulf Kristersson

Sweden failed on Thursday to convince Turkey to lift its block on Stockholm's path to NATO membership, and the issue will now go to a meeting of the Turkish and Swedish leaders next week.

US President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Wednesday that he is "looking forward" to Sweden's stalled NATO membership bid winning final approval, as the Western alliance prepares for next week's summit.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said he wanted to reiterate that he "fully, fully supports Sweden's membership in NATO."

US President Joe Biden will host Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson next week to talk about transatlantic security cooperation and the war in Ukraine, the White House said Saturday.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on June 30 called for calm and reflection in the wake of this week's protest in which a Quran was burned outside a Stockholm mosque, which has sparked outrage and condemnation.

"It is difficult to say what the consequences will be. I think there are many people who have reason to reflect," Kristersson told a press conference.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson attend a press conference after their meeting in Ankara, 8 November 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/NECATI SAVAS

Now is the time for NATO members to finalize Sweden's accession to the alliance, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a visit to Sweden and other Scandinavian countries yesterday, quoted by Reuters.

Blinken said that this Nordic country has already taken significant steps to resolve the demands that official Ankara has made Sweden's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance conditional on, Reuters reports.

The international community has collected slightly more than 6 billion euros for Türkiye and around 1 billion euros for Syria in a major donors' conference organized by the European Union to assist the victims of the Feb. 6 earthquakes and the reconstruction of 11 Turkish provinces.
 

The European Union, international financial institutions and development agencies have pledged long-term financial support to Türkiye's efforts to revive the destroyed cities and socio-economic life in the earthquake-hit region at an international donors' conference held in Brussels on March 20.

The EU, alone, has pledged 1 billion euros to quake-hit Türkiye and Syria.

A donors' conference to be jointly organized by the EU Commission and EU's term president, Sweden, will be launched on March 20 in Brussels to get pledges from the international institutions, financial bodies, countries and other relevant institutions for Türkiye and Syria, which have been severely hit by the earthquakes of Feb. 6.