OREANDA-NEWS Sweden and Finland are unlikely to become candidates for NATO membership at the organization's upcoming summit if Turkey's demands are not met before it starts. This was stated by Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Jens Stoltenberg, the Turkish Anadolu agency reports.

At the same time, the Secretary General noted that Sweden and Finland will be able to take part as invited states in the summit in Madrid, which will be held from June 28 to 30.

“My goal is to speed up the process of expanding the alliance, and we still have time for this,” Stoltenberg said.

Turkey blocked the start of negotiations in NATO on the accession of Finland and Sweden. Ankara is demanding that Sweden and Finland publicly denounce the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - which Turkish authorities consider terrorist - and that those countries lift restrictions on arms exports that they have imposed on Turkey along with several other members of the European Union.

Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during which he called on him to respect the sovereign choice of Sweden and Finland to join NATO.