Sweden expects the NATO ratification process in Türkiye to be completed soon
Sweden expects Turkey and Hungary to vote soon on their application to join the NATO alliance, Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said in Helsinki after a meeting with his Finnish counterpart on Friday.
“We see the development in Hungary as positive and we assess that there, as with Türkiye, a ratification process will soon be completed when the parliament votes on these issues,” said Billström.
“There is no indication that we will not get a positive response from the parliament in Budapest.”
Joining NATO is a top priority for Sweden’s newly appointed government, Billström said in Helsinki on Friday after the meeting with his Finnish counterpart Pekka Haavisto.
“The new Swedish government gives top priority to our NATO membership,” Billström told reporters.
He said an upcoming meeting between Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was part of that process.
Haavisto said his country remains in regular contact with Türkiye amid the Nordic nation’s NATO membership bid and has been in dialogue with his Turkish counterpart over the past week.
Erdoğan said he has agreed to meet Sweden’s new prime minister in Ankara to discuss the Scandinavian country’s bid to join NATO, describing the visit as an opportunity to test Stockholm’s “sincerity” in meeting Turkey’s terms.
In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden abandoned a long-standing policy of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership this year along with neighboring Finland. Türkiye, already one of the oldest members of the military alliance, threatened to block the process.
Ankara made a number of demands on Stockholm in particular to crack down on some groups that Ankara accuses of terrorism and considers to be a threat to national security.
Erdoğan told a group of reporters on Thursday when he returned from a trip to Azerbaijan that Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson had spoken out “in favor of the fight against terrorism and terrorists.” The Turkish leader said he accepted Kristersson’s request to visit the Turkish capital.
“Of course, we will test their sincerity on this issue during this visit,” Erdoğan said in comments quoted by Turkish media on Friday.
NATO operates by consensus, so Sweden and Finland need Turkey’s approval to join. Türkiye and Hungary’s parliaments have not yet ratified their accession.
“Our stance has not changed,” Erdoğan said. “There is no compromise in the fight against terrorism and we have no intention of making any concessions.”
Last month, Sweden announced that it would lift an arms embargo it imposed on Turkey in 2019 following a Turkish military operation against the YPG terrorist group in Syria. The move was widely seen as a step aimed at securing Ankara’s approval for Sweden’s NATO membership.