(Bloomberg) -- Sweden faces a challenge in persuading Turkey to approve its membership in NATO, according to the Nordic country’s new prime minister Ulf Kristersson.

Turkey has objected to Finland and Sweden joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanding that they extradite suspects Turkey sees as terrorists. While an agreement in June nudged the process forward, allowing 28 of the alliance’s 30 members to ratify the Nordic nations’ entry, Turkey and Hungary remain the holdouts.

Sweden and Finland have been seeking to show Erdogan that they cooperate in fighting terrorism. 

“I do not think that this is an easy task,” Kristersson told reporters at a news conference with his Finnish counterpart, Sanna Marin, in Helsinki on Friday. “I am very prepared to go to Ankara” for talks with Erdogan, he said, without confirming a date for their meeting.

Their bids, which were triggered by security concerns arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, require unanimous consent and so need approval from Turkey’s parliament. 

The meeting with Kristersson will test how “sincere” Sweden is about its counter-terrorism efforts, Erdogan said Oct. 21.

Sweden is “wholeheartedly engaged in honoring the agreement” struck with Turkey, Kristersson said on Friday. “The fight against terrorism is legitimate.”

--With assistance from Leo Laikola.

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