Turkey To Support Sweden's Nato Bid, Says Military Alliance Chief

In a surprise announcement, Turkey has agreed to back Sweden's Nato application.

Turkey has agreed to back Sweden's application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the announcement was made by the chief of the military alliance Jens Stoltenberg. Stoltenberg said at a press conference: “I’m glad to announce ... that President Erdoğan has agreed to forward the accession protocol for Sweden to the grand national assembly as soon as possible, and work closely with the assembly to ensure ratification”.

The decision by Turkey ends months of drama over an issue that had strained the bloc as war raged in Ukraine. Swedena and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning their policies of military non-alignment that had lasted through the decades of the Cold War in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The announcement came at the eve of the Nato summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. According to the Associated Press, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström was optimistic about Türkiye giving up its objection to Swedish NATO membership, saying the Nordic country’s accession is a matter of when not if. Meanwhile, Erdogan said that his country could approve Sweden’s membership in NATO if European Union nations “open the way” to Türkiye’s bid to join the EU.

Billström told public broadcaster SVT that he expects Türkiye to eventually indicate that it will let Sweden join the pact, though he could not say if it would happen at the annual summit. 

“What we are counting on, of course, is to reach a point where we get a message back from President Erdogan that there will be what you might call a green light ... a message that the ratification process in the Turkish Parliament can start,” Billström said, as quoted by AP.

As per AP's report, Erdogan linked Sweden’s membership in the Western military alliance and Türkiye’s long-stalled application to become part of the EU for the first time before departing Ankara for the NATO summit that starts Tuesday in Lithuania’s capital.

“Türkiye has been waiting at the door of the European Union for over 50 years now, and almost all of the NATO member countries are now members of the European Union,” Erdogan said Monday, as quoted by AP. “I am making this call to these countries that have kept Türkiye waiting at the gates of the European Union for more than 50 years.”

“Come and open the way for Türkiye’s membership in the European Union. When you pave the way for Türkiye, we’ll pave the way for Sweden as we did for Finland,” he added.