NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, has expressed confidence that Sweden will officially join the military alliance by July at the latest. This was reported by the German news agency DPA this week.
The upcoming NATO summit scheduled for July 9-11 in Washington is expected to witness Sweden’s full membership. Both Sweden and Finland applied to become NATO allies in response to Russian President, Vladimir Putin’s, invasion of Ukraine. While Finland’s application was promptly approved, Sweden’s entry has been facing delays due to objections from Turkey and Hungary.
Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is pressuring the Swedish government to take action against members of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), while leveraging his veto-power to acquire F-16 fighter jets from the United States. In a recent development, Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, also expressed a lack of enthusiasm to endorse Sweden’s NATO bid.
Despite these obstacles, there has supposedly been progress in the approval process. The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee granted its approval for Sweden to join the alliance in late December.
Stoltenberg noted that Stockholm has demonstrated commitment to its obligations to Ankara and has made an effort to move the NATO accession process forward. The situation remains dynamic, as the final authorization still awaits approval from the chamber’s general assembly, which will determine whether Sweden becomes a fully-pledged NATO member by the upcoming summit in July.
Source: Politico.eu
