Turkey supports Sweden's NATO bid

Turkey's parliament voted Tuesday to allow Sweden to join NATO, bringing the Nordic country a step closer to joining the military alliance and easing a diplomatic standoff that has affected Turkey's relations with the United States clouded and hampered Western efforts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine. .

The measure was passed on a vote of 287 in favor to 55 against, with four abstentions in the 600-member body. It will come into effect as soon as it is published in the country's official gazette, which is usually a quick formality. That would make Hungary the only NATO member not to have approved Sweden's accession, causing the alliance to lose the unanimity needed to add a new member.

The bill's passage marks a big moment for NATO, paving the way to expand its deterrent against Russia at a time when some members are struggling to supply Ukraine with enough weapons to roll back the Russian invasion. Sweden's accession would open up a vast area of ​​northern Europe to possible military operations by the alliance and extend the other members' automatic protection to Sweden should the country be attacked.

“Being a full ally means that if Sweden is under pressure or attacked, there is no discussion” about whether NATO would defend the country, said Camille Grand, a former NATO deputy secretary general. “As we see very clearly with Ukraine, you can be the closest NATO partner, but if you are not an ally, the debate is different.”

Despite Tuesday's vote, Sweden's quick accession is not guaranteed. Turkey could delay submitting its formal approval to the alliance, and it remains unclear when Hungary could give its consent.

Before Turkey's vote on Tuesday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary announced that he had invited the Swedish prime minister to Hungary to “negotiate” Sweden's accession, suggesting Hungary could make concessions in return for its support.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom responded that he “did not see any reason to negotiate” but that the two countries could “have a dialogue and continue to discuss questions,” according to the Swedish news agency TT.

The vote came almost two years after Russia's massive invasion of Ukraine, when Sweden and Finland, which had been militarily unaligned for years, formally applied to join the alliance. The process required the unanimous support of the body's members (now 31), and their approval was granted most quickly.

But Turkey and Hungary, whose leaders have maintained cordial relations with President Vladimir Putin of Russia throughout the war in Ukraine, held firm.

Hungarian officials have pushed back on Swedish criticism of the state of Hungary's democracy, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey accused the two Nordic countries of neglecting his country's security interests by failing to crack down on dissidents Turkey considers terrorists.

Officials from other NATO countries quietly accused Erdogan of using the alliance's rules for domestic political gain while publicly lobbying Turkey to change its position.

Sweden has taken extensive steps to address Turkey's concerns, including amending the constitution to allow for stricter anti-terrorism laws.

In March, both Hungary and Turkey changed course towards Finland, and their respective parliaments approved the country's accession. Shortly afterwards it joined NATO.

But Erdogan continued to oppose Sweden's bid, citing reasons that changed over time and prompted a diplomatic guessing game over which issue he would bring into the debate next.

Before a summit in July, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that Turkey had agreed to support Sweden's accession bid. Days later, Mr. Erdogan told Turkish news media that Sweden still needed to do more and that the issue lay with Parliament, not him.

Also hampering talks on the issue were public burnings and desecrations of the Quran by protesters in Sweden, prompting Turkey to accuse Swedish authorities of not doing enough to combat Islamophobia.

Mr Erdogan also linked the Sweden issue to Turkish demands from other NATO members. He suggested that while Turkey supports Sweden, the United States would approve the sale of a $20 billion package of American-made F-16 fighter jets and upgrade kits for fighter jets that Turkey already has. The Biden administration has said it supports the deal but has faced resistance in Congress, with members citing the country's human rights record and stance toward Sweden, frustrating Turks.

And Mr Erdogan used the issue to put pressure on Canada, another NATO member, which has imposed export restrictions on optical equipment Turkey uses in its drones.

Sweden's approval appeared to be making progress in December, when the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee approved the measure and sent it to the full assembly, in which Erdogan's political party and its allies have a majority. But it wouldn't be voted on until this week.

Sinem Adar, employee at Berlin-based Center for Applied Turkey Studiessaid it remained unclear what Mr Erdogan had gained by blocking Sweden's bid and that the move had cost Turkey dearly by making the country appear unpredictable and unreliable to its NATO allies.

“There has been a very significant erosion of trust, already weakened, between Turkey and its allies in NATO, because Turkey put its own interests above the interests of the alliance at a very important geopolitical moment,” she said.

Hungary remains the last remnant. Hungarian officials have said they would not block Sweden's bid if Turkey approved it, but the timing of Hungary's decision was not immediately clear, nor were the reasons for dragging it out.

Over the past year, Hungary has offered a wide range of explanations for the slowdown. Initially citing technical reasons related to Parliament's planning, it later complained about a video shown in Swedish schools that cast Orbán's government in a bad light and accused Sweden of showing insufficient respect for Hungary's democracy.

Mr Orban, the Kremlin's only reliable partner in the European Union, last month vetoed a plan by Europe to give Ukraine a $52 billion financial lifeline, repeatedly breaking ranks with his nominal allies.

Mr Grand, a former deputy secretary general of NATO and now a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said he assumed leaders in Budapest and Ankara were coordinating their moves and that he had become “more cautious” in predicting Sweden's rapid accession to the European Union. the alliance.

But after almost two years, he added: “I think we're at the point now where it's ridiculous to delay it any further.”

Andrew Higgins contributed reporting from Warsaw and Safak Timur from Istanbul.