US President Joe Biden on Tuesday thanked his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his “courage” after Mr Erdogan approved Sweden's accession to Nato after more than a year of tense negotiations.
“I want to thank you for your diplomacy and your courage to take that on,” said Mr Biden, according to a script of the meeting published by the White House.
Following the talks, Mr Biden took to Twitter to say: “It was great sitting down with President Erdogan once again today in Lithuania for a Nato summit made even more historic by Turkiye’s agreement on the admission of Sweden.”
Breaking with a long history of military neutrality, Sweden and Finland filed a joint request to join Nato in May after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
But Finland joined Nato alone in April as Mr Erdogan blocked Sweden's membership bid, arguing it was not doing enough to crack down on Kurdish groups operating on its soil.
Negotiations dragged on for more than a year as frustration mounted among Nato allies who overwhelmingly viewed Sweden's integration as an urgent security issue for northern Europe.
Mr Erdogan kept his Western allies guessing until the last minute and took them by surprise on Monday morning when he linked his agreement to Sweden's Nato bid to Turkey's parallel and decade-long negotiations to join the European Union.
But the Turkish President relented on Monday evening after a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and promised to send accession documents to Turkey's parliament for ratification as soon as possible.
The US played a key role in negotiations, in large part because Turkey has also been keen to purchase F-16 fighter jets from Washington.
Its request has been supported by Mr Biden but has faced opposition from Congress, which was angered by Turkey's decision to buy Russian missile defence systems in 2017.
“We will work with the Congress on the appropriate timing for getting them to Turkiye,” said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan earlier on Tuesday. He declined to give a date.
