President Joe Biden told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he wants Sweden to join NATO as soon as possible as the US pushes for a deal on the Scandinavian country’s membership ahead of a summit in Lithuania starting on Tuesday.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he wants Sweden to join NATO as soon as possible as the US pushes for a deal on the Scandinavian country’s membership ahead of a summit in Lithuania starting on Tuesday.
Turkey has cited concerns that Sweden isn’t doing enough to clamp down on Kurdish separatist groups that Ankara views as terrorist organizations and is backed by fellow NATO member Hungary. Biden, who also said there’s no “unanimity” about bringing Ukraine into the military alliance, spoke to Erdogan from Air Force One en route to the UK, and will hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on Monday before traveling to Vilnius for the two-day NATO summit.
Russia’s top military commander appeared on state television Monday for the first time since the abortive mutiny by Wagner mercenaries aimed at ousting him. Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who’s in charge of Russia’s war operations in Ukraine, was shown in a brief video receiving battlefield reports from officials.
Mykolayiv on the Black Sea was hit by a Russian ballistic missile overnight, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram, the first such attack on the Ukrainian port city since May 16.
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Coming Up
(All times CET)
- 10:50 a.m. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius joint news conference with France’s Sebastien Lecornu in Berlin
- 12:55 p.m. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg joint news conference with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda in Vilnius
- 1:45 p.m. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz joint news conference with Australia’s Anthony Albanese in Berlin
- 4 p.m. Stoltenberg meets with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Turkey’s Erdogan in Vilnius
- Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin meets with Kazakhstan’s premier, Alikhan Smailov, and their Belarus counterpart, Roman Golovchenko, at the Innoprom exhibition in Yekaterinburg, according to Interfax
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds meeting with members of Gulf Cooperation Council, according to Tass
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