Sweden says it is "waiting" for Turkey to kickstart NATO ratification process
Sweden says it is “waiting” on Turkey to kickstart the process to ratify its application to join NATO, according to the country’s foreign minister, Tobias Billstrom.
Speaking during a press conference in Riga, Latvia on Thursday, Billstom outlined Sweden’s readiness to continue with its membership application.
“Yes, we are completely ready, and we are waiting for the ratification process to start in Ankara,” Billstrom said after meeting with his Nordic and Baltic counterparts.
After months of negotiations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan finally agreed to back Sweden’s membership bid at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.
Sweden is now waiting for the Turkish parliament to vote on a document approving its accession to the military alliance.
Some background: Sweden and Finland both applied to join NATO in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but while the latter has acceded to the alliance, Sweden's application was stalled due to opposition from Turkey. Ankara raised a number of concerns, in particular claiming that Sweden allows members of recognized Kurdish terror groups to operate, most notably the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
In a surprise about-face from the Turkish president, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on the eve of the Vilnius summit that Erdogan had dropped his opposition and would put the accession protocol to Turkey's parliament for ratification. However no timeline was given for doing so.
No comments: