The Hungarian Parliament delayed the much-anticipated vote for Sweden's membership amid the absence of ruling party lawmakers on Monday. The move was postponed after members of the ruling party, which has a two-thirds majority in Parliament, did not attend the meeting, the Daily News Hungary reported.
Addressing the session, opposition lawmakers criticized ruling party members over their absence at the session, the report added.
Last week, Hungary said it would back Türkiye's decision on Sweden's bid to join NATO. "If there is a shift (in Türkiye's stance), then, of course, we will keep the promise that Hungary will not hold up any country in terms of membership," Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a news conference in Budapest.
Ahead of a NATO summit in July, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed to forward to Parliament Sweden's bid to join NATO following a trilateral meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.
Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership shortly after Russia launched its war on Ukraine in February 2022. Although Türkiye approved Finland's membership to NATO, it is waiting for Sweden to fulfill its commitments not to provide shelter to terrorists and supporters of terrorists and not to greenlight their actions. Following Türkiye's move, Szijjarto said his country's ratification of Sweden's NATO bid is now "only a technical question."
Last month, Erdoğan said the Turkish Parliament has the final say on the approval of Sweden's NATO membership bid and would decide when the legislative sessions resume. Speaking to reporters following a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan said Türkiye will fulfill its responsibility once Parliament resumes from a summer recess in the fall. "We will do our part when the parliament resumes," he said.
Stockholm earlier reassured Türkiye that it would not support the PKK/YPG terrorist organization or the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in the aftermath of its NATO membership and that a new bilateral security mechanism would be created between Ankara and Stockholm. NATO will also establish a special coordinator on counterterrorism for the first time in the bloc's history.
