Turkey might ratify Sweden’s NATO bid within weeks: Swedish FM

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Sweden’s foreign minister on Wednesday said that his Turkish counterpart told him that Ankara is expected to ratify Stockholm’s NATO bid within weeks.

Tobias Billstrom told reporters in Brussels that his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan told him on Tuesday that “he expected the ratification to take place within weeks.”

“And of course, we don’t take anything for granted from the side of Sweden, but we look forward to this being completed,” The Guardian cited Billstrom as saying.

Sweden and Finland last year reversed their decades-long tradition of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Helsinki’s bid was approved unanimously by the defence’s alliance’s members following months of delay due to Ankara’s concerns over the activities of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Nordic country.

The PKK is an armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey but is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Ankara.

Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee in mid-November held its first meeting on Sweden’s bid to join NATO but failed to make any final decisions.

The Swedish minister said “no new conditions were put forward in this conversation, there were no new demands from the Turkish government, so we look [at] our part as being fulfilled.”

Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan submitted a bill to the Turkish parliament regarding Sweden’s application, roughly three months after he voiced approval for Stockholm’s bid to join the military alliance.

Unanimous approval by alliance members is required in order for new countries to join the organization and Turkey has used this as leverage to pressure Stockholm and Helsinki to take action against Kurdish groups it considers “terrorists” in exchange for Ankara’s “yes” on the accession.

In order for Sweden’s bid to be ratified, it must be first approved by the legislature’s foreign affairs committee, then voted on by the parliament members, and finally signed into law by Erdogan himself.

Turkey might ratify Sweden’s NATO bid within weeks: Swedish FM

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