With Erdoğan back, Sweden presses Turkey again on NATO bid
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (R) and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson address a joint press conference in Stockholm on March 7, 2023, following a meeting with all Swedish party leaders who are in favor of a Swedish NATO membership. | Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images
LULEÅ, Sweden — Sweden has met all of its commitments to join NATO and expects to become part of the transatlantic military alliance by July, Tobias Billström, the country’s foreign minister, told POLITICO.
Speaking on the sidelines of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council summit, Billström said Stockholm had assuaged all of the concerns from Turkey, an existing NATO member which has held up Sweden’s application over concerns about its support for Kurdish groups which Ankara considers to be terrorist entities. Longtime leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan secured a new term as Turkish president on Sunday.
Sweden’s tweaks included updating its domestic terrorism legislation, which will come into effect on June 1, to include lengthy prison terms for individuals convicted of participating in extremist organizations in ways that promote such groups. That is a veiled reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has a following in Sweden but is banned in Turkey.
Billström said he now expected Sweden to join the alliance ahead of a NATO meeting in Vilnius on July 11.
“We have delivered everything that we said that we were going to do,” Billström said. “There is a high expectation that we will be a member before Vilnius.”
Source: POLITICO Europe
