Sweden’s entry into NATO is inevitable after a vote in the Turkish parliament

Turkish parliamentarians opened NATO’s doors to Sweden on Tuesday and are expected to finalize its entry without delay after approving a Protocol of Accession in exchange for possible American participation in the supply of F-16 aircraft.

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ankara parliament approved the text after 19 months of waiting and submitted it to the Plenary Assembly for final adoption. This formality should follow in the coming hours or days, but at some point (or date) has not yet been specified. The vote “will make NATO stronger,” UN Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed.

Turkey was the last member of the Atlantic Alliance, along with Hungary, to block Sweden’s path, multiplying demands and pretexts to justify its reluctance. The decision was immediately welcomed by Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström: “We are delighted to become a member of NATO,” he told public television SVT Nyheter. Sweden submitted its application at the same time as Finland, which was recognized in April after the start of the Russian war in Ukraine.

Biden and Erdogan’s phone call changes everything

“We are seeing a change in Swedish policy, in some decisions made by the courts,” Fuat Oktay, an AKP (ruling party) MP and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish Parliament, noted on Monday on the private NTV channel. “We still had some requests for additional progress” in the fight against terrorism, he added without further detail.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected to Stockholm’s perceived leniency towards some Kurdish groups he considers terrorists from the start of the process. First of all, it seems that after a long silence from Washington, a telephone interview with US President Joe Biden in mid-December finally overcame Erdogan’s resistance.

Consideration of the accession protocol, declared a mere formality in November, including by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who spoke of “several weeks,” collapsed after a single meeting. In early December, Recep Tayyip Erdogan added as a condition for ratification by Ankara “simultaneous” ratification by the US Congress of the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

Turkey needs F-16s

Turkey has already played this card in an attempt to get America’s green light to sell the F-16s it needs to modernize its air force. The US government is not hostile to the sale, but Congress has so far blocked it for political reasons, including tensions with Greece, also a NATO member with which Ankara has recently become closer.

“It now seems clear that these two processes will move forward in parallel,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, told AFP. But, “although the issues are unrelated, statements by Turkey – and its president – about supporting Hamas have further complicated the F-16 sales process,” the expert notes.

According to Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, “there is no real consensus either in parliament or in the American Congress. But if Biden and Erdogan show the necessary will, we can hope for a close result.”