Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s announcement about sending Sweden’s NATO application to parliament was long awaited. However, we cannot yet trust that membership will be realized quickly, writes HS’s NATO correspondent Elina Kervinen.
Monday evening The long-awaited news came from Turkey: The President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was said to have signed Sweden’s NATO application and sent it to parliament for ratification. Sweden’s journey to NATO would therefore seem to be progressing towards the finish line.
This should be a relief both in Finland and more broadly in NATO as a whole.
Before the final blessing of the parliament in Turkey – and also in Hungary – one cannot yet trust that the matter will be completely clear.
This has already been learned from Sweden’s previous NATO reversals.
The Swedish prime minister’s caution could be read by Ulf Kristersson and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billström of comments on the messaging service X (formerly Twitter) on Monday. Both commented in the same restrained tone that the parliamentary processes are starting now, and Sweden is waiting to become a member of NATO.
Promising In Turkey’s announcement on Monday, it appears that Sweden’s membership is now progressing more or less as stated. After the summer NATO summit in Vilnius, it was finally expected that Turkey would promote the issue in October, when the parliament opens. There is still a good week left in October.
Uncertainty about the issue has been significant since then, for example, due to the Koran protests seen in Sweden and the messages from Turkey that spread throughout the summer and fall.
The reservations should still be kept, for example, because Erdoğan himself has said in public that the matter is finally in the hands of the parliament.
One cannot be sure that the parliamentary proceedings would be quick and uncomplicated.
For example, the director of the Turkish Edam think tank Your Ulgen estimated on Monday that it is now a matter of when it will be decided to vote on the matter.
“Maybe it’s fast or maybe not. Again, the decision is one man’s,” he wrote in X.
Erdoğan himself referred to the parliament recently, for example, when he linked the progress of Sweden’s NATO membership and Turkey’s desired F-16 fighter jet sales from the United States.
In the US, the administration has been willing to sell fighter jets to Turkey, but there have been doubts in Congress for several reasons, Sweden’s ratification being one of them. Now it is possible to monitor what kind of news about the fighters may be received and at what stage.
At best, Sweden’s membership could proceed quickly after Erdoğan’s decision.
In the case of Finland the ratification vote was held In Turkey, a couple of weeks after Erdoğan officially announced that he would send the accession protocol to the parliament. In the end, the voting result was clearer in numbers than in Finland’s own parliament, 276–0.
More assessments and comments on the situation may come on Tuesday, when NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg conveniently visits Stockholm and holds a joint press conference with Prime Minister Kristersson.
Cause it, why Turkey finally promotes Sweden’s cause right now, one can only guess. Perhaps Erdoğan no longer simply feels that he can gain additional benefit from delaying membership.
Turkey has already gotten its terrorism concerns prominently on NATO’s agenda, most recently in connection with the Vilnius summit. At that time, Sweden and Turkey re-committed to joint anti-terrorist work also after Sweden’s membership was realized. In addition, a new position of special coordinator for counter-terrorism work was established in NATO.
Turkey has also made both Sweden and Finland relax their positions in relation to arms exports to Turkey.
At the same time, the pressure on Turkey has increased in NATO at a time when it would be favorable for the alliance to appear united.
For example, in terms of honing NATO’s new defense plans and related forces, Sweden hanging outside the alliance for a long time would probably be a troublesome factor.
The best bet for Turkey in this situation may be to show that it will ultimately stand by its NATO allies.
Swedish Naturally, the NATO path is still about what Hungary does. It also has Sweden’s NATO accession protocol yet to be ratified.
Turkey and Hungary are known to have coordinated the matter.
On Monday evening, at the time of writing this story, no new information had been received from Hungary about the progress of the case.
Hungary has previously expressed that it will not be the last NATO country to ratify Sweden’s membership. This has also been widely considered likely.
At the same time, it is the end of summer in Hungary heard harsh messages Regarding Sweden. Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán recently held one-on-one talks with the Russian president in Beijing Vladimir Putin with, which raised eyebrows in the West.
It would be worth following Hungary now. If it were to be rushed now, one could conclude that the matter is really moving at a good pace in the Turkish Parliament as well.
Even the last ones countries have ratified Sweden’s membership, the accession protocols must still be deposited with the US State Department.
In the case of Finland, this was resolved in an exceptional way, so that the representatives of the United States Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the documents in Brussels in connection with the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting last spring.
It was announced on Monday that this fall’s NATO foreign ministers’ meeting will be held in Brussels on the 28th-29th. November. It could be a suitable moment to raise the Swedish flag in front of the headquarters.
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