The rapid accession procedure of Sweden and Finland to the NATO alliance following the war started by Russia in Ukraine has encountered significant delays. The Swedish government has announced in recent days that it has reached an impasse in negotiations with Turkey, which, together with Hungary, has not yet approved the accession request as required. “Turkey demands things that we cannot to provide,” Olaf Kristerson, Sweden’s new prime minister, announced publicly this week.
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Finland, which shares a border of more than 1,300 kilometers with Russia, and Sweden, which controls significant parts of the Baltic Sea, decided in May to submit an application for rapid accession to NATO, after months of re-examining the military and geopolitical situation in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb. The two countries maintained a neutral policy for decades, including during the Cold War, but reversed it following Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine this year.
Moscow condemned the move, but made it clear that it would wait to see if joining would involve the establishment of permanent NATO bases or the placement of missile systems in the countries, potential actions that it defined as “hostile”. It also made it clear that it would consider publicly placing nuclear missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave.
The Nordic political change stems, among other things, from a change in public attitudes in the countries, which after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine supports joining the alliance after decades in which it was divided on the matter.
Both countries have an interest in joining NATO as soon as possible, in order to benefit from the collective defense provided by Article 5 of the treaty that regulates the operation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This article states that an attack on one of the members is equivalent to an attack on all of them.
After the submission of the official request by the countries and an official invitation issued in response by NATO, the 30 existing alliance members must formally approve, including in the parliaments of some of them, the application for accession. After that, the two countries must approve the accession by voting in their parliaments.
While Hungary, which is considered a certain ally of Russia in the West, has announced that it will approve the accession requests “soon” (estimates are that a vote will take place in the coming weeks, AA), Turkey continues to create difficulties for the process, especially around Sweden’s foreign and security policy. The President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan demanded that the Swedes change their policy regarding the granting of political asylum to opponents of the Kurdish regime, whom he defined as “terrorists”, and opposed the de facto ban that Sweden had adopted regarding the sale of arms to the country.
Deadlock
Sweden and Turkey have announced a dialogue between them in recent months, with the aim of overcoming the differences. As part of the negotiations, Sweden “folded” and agreed to sell weapons to Turkey despite its use in the war in northern Syria. It also stated that it would “fight terrorism” directed against Ankara and adopted additional measures.
However, a central dispute between the countries concerns specific activists, such as the former editor of the “Zaman Daily” newspaper, who fled to Sweden. Erdogan directly accuses him of involvement in the failed coup attempt in 2016, and demands his extradition to Turkey. The Swedish Supreme Court, however, rejected the Turkish extradition request, on the grounds that the editor is likely to face political persecution if he is deported to the country.
It seems that this case, and perhaps similar ones, are at the center of the current conflict between the countries. “Turkey confirms that we did what we promised to do,” the Swedish prime minister said earlier this week, “but they also say they are interested in things we are unable and unwilling to give them, so the decision now goes to the Turkish side.”
The impasse could translate into a significant delay in the countries’ accession process. When the Swedish prime minister was asked if he estimated that the Turkish parliament would approve the accession request of Sweden and Finland before the upcoming presidential elections in the country in June, he said that it was “impossible to know”. The Finnish foreign minister openly estimated that Turkey would not approve the accession request before the elections in June. Originally, the estimates were that by this April both countries would already be full members of NATO.
The secretary general of the alliance, the Norwegian Jens Stolentberg, who is involved in the talks between the parties, tried in recent days to reduce the importance of the dispute and said that he is happy that “the agreement with Ankara has been carried out”, and that he is “confident that we will soon warmly welcome Sweden and Finland into the alliance.” He also He said that despite the current intermediate stage, NATO is actually already a guarantee for the security of the two countries. “It is unacceptable that NATO will not act if the security of Sweden and Finland is threatened,” he stated.