Turkey agreed on Monday July 10 to Sweden’s membership in NATO, a “historic day” which allows the Allies to highlight their unity during a summit focused on support for NATO. Ukraine, almost 18 months after the start of the Russian offensive. “Finalizing Sweden’s NATO membership is a historic step that benefits the security of all NATO allies at this critical time. It makes us all stronger and safer,” the secretary said. NATO General Jens Stoltenberg.
Following a meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, re-elected at the end of May for five years, and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, he specified that the Turkish Head of State had agreed to transmit the protocol of Sweden’s accession to the Turkish Parliament “as soon as possible”. The parallel with the previous Atlantic Alliance summit in Madrid a year ago is striking. At the time, already, it had taken hours of negotiations to extract support from the Turkish head of state for the initial invitation to Stockholm. US President Joe Biden said he was “ready to work with President Erdogan and Turkey to strengthen defense and deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area”, saying he was “looking forward” to welcoming Sweden as the 32nd member state. of NATO.
At the start of the day, however, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had cast a chill over the prospects for a rapid settlement of this issue, by linking Sweden’s membership of NATO to that – stalled for several years – of the Turkey to the European Union. A meeting with the President of the European Council Charles Michel had hinted at an improvement, the latter evoking, in a tweet, their common desire to “revitalize” Turkey-EU relations.
Jens Stoltenberg also said that Sweden had agreed “as a member of the EU, to actively support efforts to reinvigorate Turkey’s EU accession process and to contribute to the modernization of the agreement EU-Turkey customs union and visa liberalisation”.