“A historic step”: Turkey supports Sweden’s NATO membership

2023-07-11 04:11:16

Turkey agreed to Sweden’s membership in NATO on Monday, a “historic day” which allows the Allies to highlight their unity during a summit centered on support for Ukraine, near 18 months after the start of the Russian offensive.

“Finalizing Sweden’s NATO membership is a historic step that benefits the security of all NATO allies at this critical time. It makes us all stronger and safer,” greeted NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Glad to announce that after the meeting I hosted with @RTErdogan & @SwedishPMPresident Erdogan has agreed to forward #Sweden‘s accession protocol to the Grand National Assembly ASAP & ensure ratification. This is an historic step which makes all #NATO Allies stronger & safer. pic.twitter.com/D7OeR5Vgba

— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) July 10, 2023

Following a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, re-elected at the end of May for five years, and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, he clarified that Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to transmit Sweden’s accession protocol to the Turkish Parliament “as soon as possible”.

The parallel with the previous Atlantic Alliance summit in Madrid a year ago is striking. At the time, already, it had taken hours of negotiations to wrest support from the Turkish head of state for the initial invitation to Stockholm.

“Ukraine will still have to carry out other reforms before joining NATO”

At the start of the day, however, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had cast a chill over the prospects for a rapid settlement of this issue, by linking Sweden’s membership of NATO to that – stalled for several years – of the Turkey to the European Union. A meeting with the President of the European Council Charles Michel had hinted at an improvement, the latter evoking, in a tweettheir common desire to “revitalize” Türkiye-EU relations.

Jens Stoltenberg also said that Sweden had agreed “as a member of the EU, to actively support efforts to reinvigorate Turkey’s EU accession process and to contribute to the modernization of the agreement EU-Turkey customs union and visa liberalisation”.

On the sensitive issue of Ukraine’s membership, the Alliance announced that it was going to lift the MAP (“Membership action plan”), a sort of antechamber to the candidacy for the Alliance which sets a certain number of reform goals. “But Ukraine will still have to carry out other reforms before joining NATO,” said a Western official on condition of anonymity. “The process of joining NATO takes time,” hammered US President Joe Biden in an interview with CNN.

“Ukraine deserves to be part of the Alliance. Not now because now is war, but we need a clear signal and this signal is needed now,” and declared by Volodymyr Zelensky in his daily video message.