Ukraine deserves to be in NATO, Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of the alliance’s upcoming summit in Lithuania. Photo courtesy of Turkish Presidency

Erdogan’s comments almost immediately prompted President Joe Biden to call discussion of Ukraine’s possible NATO membership “premature.”

“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war,” Biden told CNN in an interview.

“For example, if you did that, then, you know — and I mean what I say — we’re determined to commit every inch of territory that is NATO territory. It’s a commitment that we’ve all made no matter what. If the war is going on, then we’re all in war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case.”

Biden instead called on the alliance to create a “rational path” for Ukraine membership.

“It’s premature to say, to call for a vote, you know, in now, because there’s other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization and some of those issues,” Biden said.

Turkey joined NATO in 1952 and has the second-largest military in the alliance, with its role in the alliance constantly increasing since the end of the Cold War as a bridge between the East and the West.

Talks at NATO’s Vilnius summit are expected to include Ukraine’s long-shot bid to join the alliance amid active war with Russia and an application from Sweden, which has faced resistance from Turkey. Accession to NATO requires a unanimous vote from all 31 members, including new addition Finland.

Ukraine’s NATO membership has remained unanswered because it could mean an open war with Russia. Ukraine’s allies in Eastern Europe have expressed their hopes for a concrete path for Ukrainian membership in NATO — but after the war ends.

In the meantime, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez voiced support for the creation of a Ukraine-NATO Defense Council which would allow the alliance to provide more aid to Ukraine until it can become a full NATO member. The decision to join NATO has roots from before Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia agreed with the United States and Britain to commit to respecting the sovereignty of Ukraine if the country were to transfer its inherited Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia for decommissioning.

Then in 2008, NATO promised to give Ukraine full membership, which Putin has long seen as a threat to Russia. Ukraine and Russia have been engaged in ongoing disputes and conflict since Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraine joined NATO as a partner in June 2020 but does not currently benefit from collective defense agreements. A Ukraine-NATO Defense Council would help the alliance provide some aid to Ukraine without making it a member.

Russia sent documents to NATO and the United States in December demanding the alliance deny membership to former Soviet countries including Ukraine and scale back military forces in central and eastern European countries.

Erdogan’s comments mark a massive show of support from Turkey, which has largely attempted to play the role of a peace broker between Kyiv and Moscow — including the pursuit of deals to ship Ukrainian grain among other arrangements.

In his comments, Erdogan also said an exchange of prisoners of war remains “high on our agenda” and that Turkish companies will help Ukrainians reconstruct their country when the war is over.

Zelensky returned to Ukraine from Turkey with five Ukrainian commanders who defended the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol last year.

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Russian state media that Turkey violated an agreement between Ukraine and Russia that it had brokered under which the Ukrainian fighters would remain in Turkey until the end of the war.

Russian pro-war bloggers such as the popular Rybar account on Telegram criticized the Russian government and questioned why Russia would allow prisoners of war to reside in a third country that is not sympathetic to Russia.