Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to support Sweden’s bid to join NATO, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday.
Stoltenberg tweeted that Erdogan met with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and reached an agreement on Sweden’s NATO membership, hours after Erdogan said the European Union should consider his country’s admission first in the EU.
At a news conference on Monday, Stoltenberg said Erdogan intends to present the ratification documents to the Turkish parliament “as soon as possible,” but declined to provide “exact dates.”
He added: “And then of course it’s up to parliament … to have the process and then do the final ratification.”
Hungary has also opposed Sweden’s bid to join NATO, but Stoltenberg said Hungary would not be “the last to ratify”. Therefore, now that Turkey has accepted Sweden’s accession, “I think the problem will be solved,” he added.
President Biden, who has supported Sweden joining NATO amid the Russian invasion of Ukrianehe praised the deal.
NATO member countries are meeting this week in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Stoltenberg offered only a broad description of how Turkey had reached its decision to support Sweden’s accession.
“What we’ve seen is that we’ve been able to reconcile the concerns expressed by Turkey with those expressed by Sweden and then we’ve been able to find common ground together, and then move forward based on that,” he said. said
Turkey’s Communications Directorate said in a statement on Sunday that Sweden had “taken some steps in the right direction by making changes to anti-terror legislation”, but criticized Sweden for allowing protests by organizations Turkey has designated terrorist groups, including the Kurdish pro-PKK and YPG.
Turkey has also criticized Sweden for allowing protests involving the burning of the Koran.
Sweden had applied to join NATO along with Finland, which was also initially blocked by Turkey. But Finland and Turkey reached an agreement, and in April Finland became the 31st country to join the alliance.
Regarding Erdogan’s comments on Turkey’s EU accession, Stoltenberg noted that he could not speak for the EU. Turkey has long sought EU membership, and the organization said in 1999 that it would formally consider its application. After the 2004 enlargement – which did not include Turkey – the EU adopted a framework for negotiations, but since then there has been no progress.
Olivia Gazis contributed to this report.
