Turkey informed Sweden it expected to ratify the NATO accession within weeks, Sweden’s foreign minister announced on Wednesday.
Sweden and Finland announced their intention to join NATO last year after the outbreak of war in Ukraine. However, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan raised objections over what he said was the two countries’ defence of groups that Ankara considered as terrorists.
In April, Turkey supported Finland’s membership bid, but forced Sweden to wait.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom stated ahead of the second day of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting:
I had a bilateral with my colleague, the [Turkish] foreign minister […] where he told me he expected the ratification to take place within weeks.
Turkey requested Sweden to take additional steps to curb local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.
In response, Stockholm introduced an anti-terrorism bill that would make membership in a terrorist organisation illegal as well as lifted restrictions on arms exports to Turkey.
“The Turkish foreign minister [Hakan Fidan] didn’t present a date but said ‘within weeks.”
In July, Erdogan linked Sweden’s NATO membership to Turkey’s accession to the EU, negotiations on which had been frozen for years. However, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters on Wednesday that “open issues” still remained before accession.
The EU stated on Wednesday that it might resume talks with Turkey on rapid modernisation of the Customs Union and examine possibilities with member states to facilitate access to visa applications.
However, Sweden’s NATO membership is also awaiting ratification by Hungary.
[Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán has repeatedly said that Hungary won’t be the last to ratify Sweden’s membership. That means that it is more in the hands of Ankara than maybe of Budapest. We expect white smoke from Budapest the moment there is white smoke from Ankara.
