Today, Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to "freeze" Sweden and Finland's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), if they did not comply with Ankara's conditions.
"We have taken a very clear position on the continued expansion of NATO. I would like to remind once again that we will freeze the operation if these countries do not take the necessary measures to fulfill our conditions," Erdogan said.
"We do not see good indications from Sweden in particular about its commitments to Turkey in this regard," he added.
This came in a speech he addressed to the Turkish people after presiding over a government meeting at the Presidential Complex in the capital, Ankara.
On May 18, Sweden and Finland formally applied to join NATO.
The three countries signed a memorandum of understanding paving the way for Helsinki and Stockholm to join NATO, after pledging to respond to Ankara's demands and allay its security concerns.
Turkey - a member of the alliance since 1952 - has opposed the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, accusing the two countries of harboring PKK activists.
Earlier, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag revealed that Ankara would ask Finland and Sweden to extradite 33 people belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party and Fethullah Gulen's group, which it considers terrorists.
On the other hand, Tehran will host - tomorrow, Tuesday - a tripartite summit between Iran, Turkey and Russia, and it is scheduled to focus on discussing the Syrian file, and addressing other files, foremost of which is the Ukrainian war and the revival of the nuclear agreement.