Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his US counterpart Joe Biden kicked off a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday, News.az  reports citing Anadolu.

In a brief interaction before the closed-door meeting, Erdogan said steps being taken to strengthen NATO will have a “special contribution” in the context of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Biden thanked Erdogan for his efforts to get millions of tons of grain out of Ukraine and supporting Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership.