Sweden expects Turkey to approve NATO membership ‘within weeks’

BRUSSELS — Sweden expects the Turkey to approve its NATO membership “within weeks,” the country’s foreign minister told CNBC after a months-long stalemate over Stockholm’s future within the alliance.

Sweden sent a formal application to join NATO in May 2022, along with Finland. The latter became an official member in April 2023, but Sweden remains on hold from member states Hungary and Turkey.

Turkey has raised questions about what it says is Sweden’s harboring of militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Hungary, on the other hand, has expressed concerns about comments made in the past in Sweden that criticized Hungary’s lack of democratic values.

During a NATO meeting in July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to leave Sweden in the alliance. However, the Turkish parliament has yet to approve it.

“I had a bilateral meeting with my colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Hakan Fidan, where he told me he expects ratification to happen within weeks,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said Wednesday in Brussels.

“Of course we don’t take anything for granted from the Swedish side, but we look forward to it being completed and no new conditions were put in this conversation, there were no new demands from the Turkish government,” Minister Billström said. he told reporters.

Asked by CNBC what kind of guarantees he had received from Hungary, Billstrom also said he had spoken with his counterpart in Brussels and that Budapest “will not be the last to ratify” Stockholm’s membership.

“I asked my colleague the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Mr. Péter Szijjártó, yesterday will you continue to keep your promise that you will not be the last to ratify Sweden? And he said “yes, we will not be the last to ratify”. — that means it’s more in Ankara’s hands than maybe Budapest’s,” the Swedish minister said.

He added: “We expect white smoke from Budapest at the moment there is white smoke from Ankara.”