The Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, announced on Monday that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has unblocked Sweden’s accession process to NATO. The advance came early in the night after Turkey’s leader made Ankara’s green light conditional on progress in Turkey’s accession to the European Union in the morning. Leaving aside this obstacle, the Heads of State and Government of the NATO countries can commit to support Ukraine this Tuesday and Wednesday at the summit in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius.
“We are working hard to get Sweden to join as soon as possible,” Stoltenberg had said, convinced that the final talk “with President Erdogan and Prime Minister [Ulf] Kristersson,” tonight before the summit, gave him some optimism. “It is still possible to take a positive decision here in Vilnius about Sweden’s entry,” he said, although he admitted to having “neither certainties nor guarantees” . That optimism turned out to be justified, as Erdogan agreed to send the Swedish accession process to the Turkish parliament for ratification as soon as possible.
The turn of events came 12 hours later, before Erdogan boarded a plane to Vilnius, tempering expectations with a surprising statement. “First, clear the way for Turkey to join the European Union and then we will open it for Sweden, just as we opened it for Finland.” In Lithuania, he met with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and both agreed to “revive relations” between Ankara and Brussels.
NATO’s Secretary General had hinted that Turkey’s accession to the European Union and Sweden’s to NATO should remain separate processes. “I support Turkey’s ambitions to join the European Union,” the secretary-general accepted, stressing that “at the same time” “what we agreed in Madrid” must be taken into account.
A memorandum was signed at the Madrid summit with “a specific list of conditions that Sweden must fulfill in order to become a full member of the alliance”, Stoltenberg recalled, stressing that “Sweden has fulfilled these conditions”.
Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa also disagreed with the idea of linking the two accession processes, saying that “these are two different issues”. And he believed that Sweden fulfilled all the conditions. “It submitted the request simultaneously with Finland, which fortunately is now an integral part of NATO,” said Costa in Šiauliai, “the base that should be one of the first missions in which Finland participates as an ally [e] Let’s hope that Sweden, which fulfills all the conditions, can also join soon.”
This was also the expectation of Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, who, in a statement to DN and TSF during the morning, expressed “the belief” that Turkey would raise all objections and expected “a positive response even at the summit reaction”. in Vilnius” so that the ratification process “can start as soon as the summit is over”.
Negotiations were completed on the Stockholm side. “We have fulfilled all the commitments we made and that is why we have fulfilled the promises we made in Madrid to take Turkey’s security problems seriously.” underlined, giving demonstrative examples of the actions of the Stockholm authorities in the face of Turkish security concerns.
“We had the verdict of the court in Sweden in which a person belonging to the PKK was sentenced to four and a half years in prison and to extradition,” said the minister, for whom this example is “a clear sign that Sweden is taking security issues regarding the PKK very seriously”.
This position was supported by NATO’s Secretary General, who considers it “important” that Ankara’s concerns are taken into account, but “it is equally important that we respond to the legitimate security concerns of all allies that include Sweden as a member of want to see NATO”. alliance as soon as possible, as this will strengthen NATO and enhance our ability to defend and protect, especially the Baltic region.”
On the eve of the summit, António Costa visited the Šiauliai base in Lithuania, where the Portuguese Air Force’s F-16 fighters are parked. The Prime Minister stressed the importance of the mission, at a time when “the realities of security on a global scale and on a European scale have changed dramatically”.
“There will be few places where this change is more perceptible than right here on this eastern border of our defensive alliance that is NATO,” he stressed, as “every contribution we make to the security of others is the guarantee that all others will contribute to our security when threatened”.
With Susana Salvador
Source: DN
