It was another happy time in Madrid, of half-baked, Kodak-moment pleasantries when the leaders of 30 NATO member states posed for the cameras with broad family smiles. They were on display for Turkey’s Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for having removed his veto against the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO. How did that happen? The stick.

On June 23, Turkey’s top defense procurement official, Ismail Demir, said that Turkey must be cautious when it comes to delivering more weapons to Ukraine amid the war with Russia. The statement was a clear sign that Ankara did not want to annoy Moscow with the sale to Ukraine of the Turkish-made TB-2 armed drones which, in the early days of the war, were instrumental, but later became easy targets for Russian air defenses.

Here, however, is the choreography:

On May 17, Erdoğan said that Turkey would veto Sweden and Finland’s bids for NATO membership, and accused them of hosting Kurdish separatists.

On May 24, Erdoğan’s ultra-nationalist coalition partner, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, announced that Turkey might consider leaving NATO if the conditions on the issue of Finland and Sweden’s NATO bid do not meet Ankara’s security concerns.

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Then Turkey was accused of buying grain from Russia that it had stolen from Ukraine. Turkish officials said it was hard to determine the grain’s origin.

Fast forward to June 25, a few days before the NATO Summit in Madrid. Erdoğan told NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in a telephone call that Finland and Sweden had to take sincere and tangible steps over harboring Kurdish militants within their borders. Erdoğan also asked for the removal of any arms embargo by the Nordic states on Turkey.

Read more: Gatestone Institute