US President Joe Biden congratulated his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the agreement he reached with Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to send Sweden’s Nato accession protocol to Turkey’s parliament for ratification, the White House said on July 11.

The statement was made in the readout of the meeting held between Biden and Erdogan in Latvian capital Vilnius on the sidelines of the Nato summit.

The statement from the Turkish presidency was incomparably more colourful, as usual. It included many photos and videos that showed how cool both world leaders were when it came to their close relationship based on admiration.

Screenshot from Turkish presidency’s statement on the meeting between Erdogan and Biden on its official website.

Erdogan is again returning back home from a Nato summit with many photos in his album. He marshalled his all counterparts ranging from UK’s new PM Rishi Sunak to old pal Emmanuel Macron.

US President Biden, for his part, described the Nato Summit as “historic,” and expressed his pleasure over the agreement reached about Sweden’s Nato membership bid, the statement from Turkish presidency on the Erdogan-Biden meeting reads: "Thanking President Erdogan for the diplomacy he carried out and the leadership he displayed on the Sweden issue."

President Biden has also said, according to the Turkish presidency’s statement, “This summit is reaffirming our commitment to Nato defence with close allies in Nato, and I hope we can make it even stronger.”

In response to President Erdogan’s wishes of good luck in the US presidential elections, President Biden has stated: “And we look forward to meeting with you the next five years.”

The meeting was held after Erdogan gave a green light to Sweden at a trilateral meeting held on July 10 between Erdogan, Kristersson and Stoltenberg.

It was no surprise to those who are old Turkey hands. Erdogan do not hesitate from staging dizzying U-turns. It does not cost him anything. Turkey has for long time had no foreign policy, just Erdogan’s relations with his counterparts, which includes a bunch of meaningless zigzags and U-turns.

For the sake of making some headlines, Erdogan takes some pointlessly harsh stances; then he sharply reverses when the deadline comes.

On May 29, bne Intellinews noted: “The transactional Erdogan has no particular problem with Nato or Western governments. He will give the nod to Sweden’s accession into Nato in June. The deadline will fall with the defence alliance's summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on July 11-12.”

“Erdogan loves to test the margins of the playing field. He’s had a fine old time creating noise for public relations purposes over the Finnish and Swedish bids to join Nato. Nato, of course, has already de facto been closely co-operating with both Finland and Sweden. Now the Turkish elections are out of the way, it will want to get a move on with the formal expansion. Any more nonsense from Erdogan and things could turn rather sour.”

On June 26, Reuters reported that the US and Swedish authorities are reviewing a complaint alleging that Dignita Systems AB, the Swedish affiliate of a US company, pledged to pay out tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks if Erdogan’s son Bilal assisted it in obtaining a dominant market position in the country.

In 2018, during the row over the arrest of US Pastor Andrew Brunson in Turkey, the property holdings of Erdogan and his family in the US had become an issue, not long before Brunson was released.

On July 7, bne IntelliNews noted: “In Vilnius, a ceremony that would honour Erdogan before cameras and a photo opportunity with Biden could end the Swedish accession drama.”

It lasted for more or less one year. Erdogan made millions of media headlines. Now, it is time to find some other issue. It is summer time. Sending some vessels to Greek waters could trigger a few thousand words of ‘analysis’ on the issue whether Turkey and Greece (both Nato members) would have a battle.