Turkish foreign minister: We are not against Ukraine being in NATO but we must be realistic

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said that Türkiye is not against Ukraine's membership of NATO but called for a realistic approach to this issue.

In response to a question about whether Türkiye believes that Ukraine should become a member of NATO, Fidan said that "we wouldn’t mind if they want to be a NATO member".

"But we have to be very much realistic, because we openly stated that we are in favour of Ukraine to be a NATO member. This was the statement from our president, so this is our official position," Fidan said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, as quoted by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

When asked if the new Donald Trump administration had changed the US position on Ukraine's membership, Fidan said he was not sure.

"I am not sure if the previous administration was also in favour of Ukraine joining NATO. So I think there is no new policy on this," the minister said.

He noted that discussions are ongoing between Türkiye, European partners and Ukrainian officials about Ukraine's ambitions to join NATO.

"Ukrainians are asking for NATO membership, just not for the sake of being a NATO member. It's just to see a security guarantee for their own country," Fidan said.

"I think now the security guarantee for not seeing the war re-emerging is one of the primary questions that we are discussing in the negotiations. So, the Ukrainians, one of the ways that they want to see is NATO membership, [or] if not creating a big international coalition to deploy alongside the contact lines or the Russians might have different ideas for guarantee and security guarantees. Those are the issues that we are discussing with alternative scenarios," he added.

In the past, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has supported Ukraine's membership of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Later, he clarified that the United States and other NATO countries did not want Ukraine to join the Alliance, and Türkiye would consider their position when it makes its own decision on this matter.