“I have had a good conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about Sweden’s and Finland’s applications for membership in NATO,” Defense Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter on Saturday.
“We agreed to continue the talks in Brussels and Madrid next week,” Stoltenberg continues.
The NATO summit in Madrid begins on Tuesday, when the hopes were that the Swedish and Finnish application processes could be completed.
All 30 member states must say yes for Sweden and Finland to be admitted, but Turkey is lagging behind and has made a number of demands to say yes.
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said on Tuesday that it is unlikely that a solution will be reached before the meeting in Madrid.
The two countries will not succeed in reaching an agreement with Turkey in the ongoing negotiations before then, the president believes.