NATO will likely finalize the long-stalled accession of Sweden in 2024, according to Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
He is confident that the country will be included as the 32nd member of the alliance at the NATO summit by July at the latest, he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) in an interview at the turn of the year.
Sweden had fulfilled its promises to Türkiye, he said. Talks are currently underway between the United States and Türkiye on the F-16 fighter jet deal, which was a further demand made by the government in Ankara.
Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022, a decision affected by the Kremlin's war on Ukraine and hoped to join later that summer.
However, Türkiye opposed Sweden's membership, accusing it of lacking commitment in dealing with terrorist organizations like the PKK and Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ). New members of the alliance must be unanimously approved by current members.
Ankara has been angered mainly by the Nordic country's tolerance of members and sympathizers of the PKK, which has led a bloody campaign against the Turkish state since the 1980s, killing over 40,000 civilians. FETÖ was responsible for a bloody coup attempt in 2016 that claimed 251 lives and injured thousands of others.
After Sweden tightened its counterterrorism legislation in response to Turkish pressure, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lifted his objections and forwarded Sweden's protocol to the Turkish Parliament, awaiting a full house vote for total ratification. Lawmakers are not expected to vote on the matter before mid-January, parliamentary sources said last week.
In the meantime, however, Erdoğan wants the U.S. Congress to approve the delivery of U.S. F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye. Even though the U.S. administration has promised to move forward with the sale, Congress resolutely resists approving it.
Diplomats say Erdoğan's call came in response to the fact that allies such as the U.S. and Germany restricted arms exports to Türkiye in recent years, citing Turkish arms purchases in Russia. Türkiye expects the U.S. to "act in line with the spirit of alliance and fulfill commitments" about the F-16s, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call after the Turkish parliamentary committee greenlighted Sweden's protocol.
On Monday, Stoltenberg underlined the importance of Türkiye to security in Europe. "Its strategic geographic location at the Black Sea demonstrates that but also the fact that they're bordering Iraq and Syria," he said.
Türkiye "is playing a key role" in the fight against Daesh, Stoltenberg added, noting that NATO uses Turkish infrastructure to defeat the terror organization. Daesh controlled one-third of Iraq and Syria at its 2014 peak. Though beaten back, it continues to wage attacks, including one on a nightclub in Istanbul on Jan. 1, 2017, in which 39 people were killed.
The next regular NATO summit will be organized in Washington from July 9 to 11, and the alliance is also set to celebrate its 75th anniversary.
For Sweden to participate as a full member, all current members of the alliance must ratify the so-called accession protocol.
Aside from Türkiye, Hungary has also not yet done so. However, the government in Budapest has repeatedly emphasized that Hungary will not be the last country to take this step.