Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has submitted a protocol for Sweden’s accession to NATO to the national parliament for ratification, his office said on Monday.
Erdogan has postponed ratification of Sweden’s admission to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Western Defense Bloc) as a full member, accusing Stockholm of being too soft on Kurdish rebels and other groups he sees as a security threat.
Turkey was also angered by a series of demonstrations in Sweden that included the burning of copies of the Koran, Islam’s holy book.
NATO’s 31 member states must unanimously support Sweden’s membership. There are currently no ratifications from Turkey and Hungary.
A brief statement from the presidential communications department revealed that Erdogan had signed the protocol on Sweden’s admission to the Atlantic Alliance, which was then submitted to the Turkish Grand National Assembly (named after the Turkish parliament).
However, it is unknown when Sweden’s accession will be voted on.
Sweden and neighboring Finland abandoned decades of military non-alignment after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022, seeking protection under Ukraine’s security umbrella. Finland joined the military alliance in April this year.
In early October, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Turkey to quickly ratify Sweden’s membership of the Western defense organization.
“Many allies would like to see rapid progress on this ratification,” Stoltenberg told the US news agency Associated Press (AP) after chairing a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
“Sweden has fulfilled its promise, and now we need the ratification of Sweden’s accession,” he stressed.
Source: DN
