Türkiye gives the green light for Sweden to join NATO

The Turkish Parliament on Tuesday finally gave its support to Sweden’s membership in NATO, removing a major obstacle to the previously non-aligned country’s entry into the military alliance. Legislators ratified Sweden’s entry protocol by 287 votes in favor, 55 against and four abstentions. The Turkish approval comes about 20 months after Stockholm asked to join NATO following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine. New additions to the Atlantic Alliance must be endorsed by all its partners

The Turkish parliament’s foreign committee approved the candidacy last month, with the backing of Erdogan’s ruling AK Party, its nationalist allies MHP and the main opposition CHP. The nationalist and Islamist opposition parties rejected it.

The delay in getting Turkey’s approval has frustrated some of Ankara’s Western allies and allowed Turkey to extract some concessions. When Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO in 2022, Turkey surprised some Alliance members by raising objections over what it said was the two countries’ protection of groups Ankara considers terrorists.

Turkey backed Finland’s membership in April last year but, along with Hungary, has kept Sweden waiting. Ankara had urged Stockholm to toughen its stance toward local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the European Union and the United States also consider a terrorist group.

In response, Stockholm introduced a new bill making it illegal to be a member of a terrorist organization. Sweden, Finland, Canada and the Netherlands also took steps to relax Turkey’s arms export policies.

Erdogan, who sent Sweden’s candidacy to parliament in October, linked Sweden’s ratification to US approval of sales of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. The White House supports the sale, although there is no clear deadline for the US Congress to approve it and Turkey faces some opposition in Congress over the delay in NATO expansion and its human rights record.

Erdogan is expected to sign it into law within days, leaving Hungary as the only Atlantic Alliance member state that has not approved Sweden’s accession. It must be remembered that Turkey and Hungary have better relations with Russia than other NATO members.

Hungary had promised not to be the last ally to ratify Sweden’s membership, but its parliament is in recess until about mid-February. However, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said this Tuesday, in a message on the X platform, that he wants to personally negotiate Sweden’s accession to NATO. “Today I sent a letter of invitation to the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, for a visit to Hungary to negotiate Sweden’s accession to NATO,” Orbán’s text said.

While Orbán says his government supports Sweden’s admission to the alliance, he says lawmakers from his party, the ruling Fidesz, are unconvinced because of what he called “blatant lies” by Swedish politicians about the condition of democracy. in Hungary. In the letter, Orbán asks his Swedish counterpart for “a more intense political dialogue” that could contribute to “reinforcing mutual trust.”

Sweden is precisely participating in the military maneuvers that NATO is holding in the Baltic countries, Poland, Germany, Norway and Romania, the largest since 1998. The Steadfast Defender exercises bring together some 90,000 soldiers, 1,100 combat vehicles, more than 80 aircraft and more of 50 ships.