Turkey ratifies Sweden’s accession to NATO after months of blockade

He Turkish parliament approved in a unanimous vote yesterday Tuesday Sweden’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), after months of blockade because it was felt that the Scandinavian country was not doing enough against the Kurdish militants. In the vote, 287 MPs voted in favour, 55 against, and 4 abstained, while the rest of the MPs (600 MPs in total) did not attend the vote.

During the debate, both the AKP, the Islamist party that has ruled Turkey since 2002, and the social democratic CHP, the largest opposition party, expressed their positions. Meanwhile, some smaller formations, such as the Islamist Saadet and the left-wing TIP, in the opposition, as well as the fundamentalist Hüda-Par, allied with the AKP, have expressed their rejection of NATO as a whole.

In recent months, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had linked the approval to the agreement with the US to sell F-16 fighter-bombers to Turkey, a transaction that had been planned for years but was blocked by the US Congress. Although it is not clear where these negotiations are at, Parliament has now backed Sweden’s entry into the Atlantic Alliance, which only requires the approval of Hungary, ruled by ultranationalist Viktor Orbán.

Over the past year, Budapest had hinted that it would not oppose Sweden’s accession if Turkey agreed.

Sweden, for its part, celebrated the Turkish parliament’s approval of the Nordic country’s accession to NATO. “Today we are one step closer to becoming a full member of NATO. It is positive that the Turkish parliament voted in favor of Sweden’s accession to NATO,” wrote Ed Kristersson, Prime Minister of Sweden, on the social network x.

Turkish ratification leaves in the hands of Hungary the final step of the process, as all NATO countries must approve the accession of new members.