Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has long resisted allowing Sweden to join NATO. He has now submitted Sweden’s application to join NATO to Parliament for ratification. Erdoğan signed the accession protocol and forwarded it to the Grand National Assembly, the presidential office said.
Approval is considered likely – Erdoğan’s Islamic-conservative AKP alliance has a majority in parliament. It is still unclear what the USA and NATO partners may have promised Erdoğan in return for his approval.
Turkey had blocked Sweden’s accession to NATO for months. Erdoğan had repeatedly justified his blockade with what he saw as Sweden’s inadequate efforts against “terrorist organizations”. Ankara is primarily concerned with the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG. Erdoğan also denounced Koran burnings that took place in Sweden.
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 in early April.