defense
Türkiye ratifies Sweden’s accession to NATO
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agrees to Sweden joining NATO. photo
© Marton Monus/dpa
Turkey has finally approved Sweden’s accession to NATO after much hesitation. Now all eyes are on Hungary, which also has to agree.
In the next step, according to the admission rules, the NATO partner must inform the US State Department of acceptance. However, Sweden still lacks Hungary’s consent to become a NATO member.
The final Turkish approval was received with goodwill in Stockholm. “We welcome Turkey’s ratification of Sweden’s accession to NATO,” said Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on the online platform X. “We have now reached a crucial milestone on the way to full NATO membership.”
Waiting for a decision from Budapest
After more than a year and a half of political tug-of-war, the Turkish parliament approved Sweden’s inclusion in the alliance on Tuesday. After Turkey’s approval, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban promised to press ahead with his country’s long-delayed ratification. He will urge Parliament to vote on it as soon as possible. However, it remained unclear when a vote on this could take place.
Orban invited Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson to visit Hungary to “negotiate” accession to NATO. Kristersson initially promised Orban a meeting in Brussels. In a response to Orban’s invitation to negotiations in Hungary, the Swedish head of government wrote that he also believed that more intensive political dialogue between the two countries would be beneficial. He mentioned cooperation on Swedish Gripen fighter aircraft, the EU and cooperation as NATO allies as common themes.
In view of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022. Finland was welcomed into the alliance as the 31st member at the beginning of April last year.
Turkey justified its blockade against Sweden’s accession, among other things, with what it considered to be inadequate use of the country against “terrorist organizations”. Ankara was primarily concerned with the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG. What motivated Erdogan to agree remained initially unclear. He recently demanded fighter jet deliveries from the USA in return for ratification.
The US government now wants to push ahead with the sale. President Joe Biden informed the chairmen of key committees in Congress in a letter that he intends to officially inform Parliament about the sale of F-16s to the NATO partner as soon as Turkey ratifies Sweden’s NATO accession protocols has completed. This was confirmed by a representative of the US government to the dpa in Washington. In the letter, Biden called on members of Congress to immediately move forward with the sale of the F-16.
The US Parliament can block the arms deal. A number of parliamentarians had made it clear in the past that they wanted to prevent the deal as long as Turkey opposed Sweden’s accession to NATO.