Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Swedish and Finnish delegations should not bother coming to Ankara to convince it to approve their NATO bid.
Sweden's government has formally decided to apply for NATO membership, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Monday, a day after Finnish President Sauli Niinisto confirmed that Helsinki will also apply for membership.
Turkey surprised its NATO allies last week by saying it would not view their applications positively, mainly citing their history of hosting members of groups Ankara deems terrorists.
In a news conference on Monday, Erdogan repeated that Turkey would not approve their bids to join NATO, calling Sweden a "hatchery" for terrorist organizations, and adding it had terrorists in its parliament.
"Neither of these countries has a clear, open attitude towards terrorist organizations," Erdogan said. "How can we trust them?"