US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will reportedly meet with newly appointed Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in London on the sidelines of a June 21-22 Ukraine recovery conference.

Al-Monitor on June 19 reported diplomatic sources as confirming the meeting and saying that the top agenda item would be Turkey’s continued objections to Sweden’s accession to Nato. The sources declined to comment on who requested the meeting.

Blinken pressed Fidan, Turkey’s former spymaster, on Sweden’s bid to join Nato in a call made to congratulate him on his appointment on June 8.

The hypothetical scenario in which Turkey removes its veto on Sweden’s application to join Nato after the US Congress sets aside its objections to Ankara acquiring F-16 fighter jets remains under discussion among analysts.

Turkey remains opposed to the Swedish bid to join the transatlantic defence bloc on the basis that Sweden is harbouring members, recruiters and fundraisers of groups it describes as “terrorist”, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Unity Party (PYD)—a US ally in the anti-Islamic State coalition in Syria—and the so-called Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO), which Ankara accuses of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan last week reiterated that he finds Stockholm’s efforts at addressing Turkey’s concerns over the groups unsatisfactory. That’s despite Stockholm introducing a new counterterrorism law, amending its constitution and cutting off its aid to the PYD. Erdogan wants more, including a crackdown on demonstrations against his regime in Sweden and more action on extraditions, though on the latter point the Swedes point out they have an independent judiciary, which cannot be given instructions one way or the other on extraditions. The state of the Turkish judicial system is, meanwhile, an impediment when it comes to the Turks attempting to have individuals extradited.

Paul Levin, director of the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies, was on June 18 quoted by Al-Monitor as saying that the prospects of Sweden joining the alliance before the annual Nato summit on July 11-12 in Lithuanian capital Vilnius are dim, saying: “The chances of a Swedish membership by Vilnius just got a lot smaller with Erdogan’s recent statement. Sweden is unlikely to change its long tradition of liberal freedom of speech protections.

“So my guess is that it is now largely a question of whether negotiations over F-16s between Ankara and the US Congress can reach a successful conclusion. Congress wants Turkey to ratify Sweden’s Nato membership before approving the sales. Ankara wants the jets before letting Sweden in.”

Turkey is unable to obtain F-35 fighter jets from the US because the US threw Ankara out of the F-35 programme after Erdogan went ahead and bought S-400 advanced missile defence systems from the Kremlin. Under pressure to maintain and upgrade the Turkish air force fleet, Turkey in late 2021 then announced its intention to use the $1.4bn Turkey gave to the US for ordered F-35s to instead purchase upgraded models of F-16s.

Congress subsequently added Turkey’s approval of Sweden’s Nato bid as a condition for the F-16 sale.

The Turkish side regard that precondition as unacceptable.