and i think this is why there s so much at stake here. going to the scotland yard statement, really telling that they re assessing the information, but it hasn t yet crossed a criminal threshold for them. and i think the takeaway from that is we re not the only ones who at the moment are really unsure about exactly what s been going on. in europe, there ve been some major developments ahead of a nato summit in lithuania. the alliance s chief says turkey s president erdogan has now agreed to support sweden s bid tojoin nato. that was a priority for us presidentjoe biden, who touched down in vilnius on the eve of the summit. swedish prime minister ulf kristerson said: it s a good day for sweden. we are taking a very big step towards nato membership. let s take a listen to what the nato secretary general jens stoltenberg, had to say. i think the agreement we achieved today builds on what we agreed a year ago in madrid, because in madrid, all allies and also turkey agreed to invite fin
has been finalised for finland. finland is a full member, and now president erdogan has made it clear that they are also ready to ratify sweden. our correspondent lewis vaughan jones has been following developments in vilnius. so it seems this nato s summit here in vilnius will be getting under way after a very significant concrete achievement. jens stoltenberg, the head of nato, announcing that turkey had agreed sweden could start the process to membership. now, why is that so significant? well, within nato, each and every member country effectively has a veto against anyone else joining. turkey had some reservations that it made public, and at the beginning of the day, the two sides seemed a long way apart. president erdogan starting to talk about things like opening the door for turkey to eu membership
now, the bigger issue of membership, just because sweden seems like it will become a member, there is, of course, another key country, ukraine. it is not a member of nato. it wants to be. but the agreement here is that whilst there is a war going on in ukraine, it simply can tjoin. president zelensky wants assurances from the leaders here that when the war ends, it will very, very quickly become a member of nato. so still challenges ahead of this summit. dr sue thompson, an associate professor at the national security college of australia national university says it s not quite a done deal yet until the turkish parliament supports it. this decision, the announcement from the turkish president means that this will be happening and sweden will be joining. and the irony is that pollutant s standoff in ukraine has only the sort of seen