Turkey gives the green light to Sweden’s membership in NATO. The decision was published in the official gazette on Thursday and is therefore official.
Turkey has agreed to Sweden joining the NATO defense alliance. The Turkish parliament had already voted for Sweden’s accession on Tuesday. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made the step official by signing the resolution. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson welcomed the decision. “We have now reached a crucial milestone on the path to full membership in NATO,” Kristersson wrote on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
This ends a months-long struggle between the other NATO alliance states and Turkey. Turkey had repeatedly justified its rejection of Sweden’s membership with what it saw as Sweden’s inadequate commitment against “terrorist organizations”. Ankara is primarily concerned with the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK and the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG. The government in Stockholm had responded to Turkey’s demands with stricter anti-terror laws. There was also anger over the approval of Koran burnings in Sweden, which met with sharp criticism from Ankara.
In order for Sweden to be accepted into NATO, Hungary must be the last alliance member to agree to join. All other NATO countries have already done this. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced yesterday that he wanted to give up his months-long veto against Sweden’s membership.