On Monday, it was reported that Turkey aims to ratify Sweden’s membership as quickly as possible. Now the wait seems to continue until autumn.
STOCKHOLM
President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced at the end of the NATO Summit in Vilnius that the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership will be held in the fall.
At the same time, the Turkish president said that Turkey now plans to monitor how the new anti-terrorism measures agreed with Sweden progress.
On Monday in Vilnius, the Prime Minister of Sweden by Ulf Kristersson and in the meeting with President Erdoğan, new security cooperation was agreed upon.
Sweden also promised to promote Turkey’s EU relations. At the moment, the EU membership process is completely stuck and the promise has been considered unrealistic in Sweden.
NATO Secretary General who participated in the meeting Jens Stoltenberg announced after the meeting that Turkey is now ready to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership and the matter will be brought to the Turkish parliament as quickly as possible.
However, nothing was said about the exact schedule.
Timetable open – ratification maybe in October
Today, Wednesday, President Erdoğan said that the matter will be left for the fall session of the Turkish Parliament, which begins in October.
According to the president, the parliament is already closed for this session. However, at the same time as Erdoğan held a press conference in Vilnius, the parliament session continued in Ankara.
The session will likely end tomorrow, Thursday, and on Monday, the parliament will remember the victims of the 2016 coup attempt.
At the same time, it has been reminded that the parliament can be convened at any time, even before the beginning of October.
A difficult situation for the Swedish government
President Erdoğan’s announcement about moving the ratification to autumn can be very difficult for Sweden.
Opponents of NATO membership have all along tried to provoke Turkey and Erdoğan so that membership would be postponed.
The Swedish police got some time ago three applications of protests where the purpose is to burn religious material.
In at least one case, the protest organizer plans to burn the Muslim holy book, the Koran, in Stockholm.
In Sweden, the Koran was burned last time at the end of June in front of a mosque in Stockholm. Turkey’s reaction was very strong.
Turkey sees terrorists on the streets of Stockholm
In turn, left-wing groups have organized demonstrations where, among other things, the flags of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK have been waved.
The PKK is also a terrorist organization according to the EU definition.
There is nothing to prevent further demonstrations, while Turkey monitors Sweden’s anti-terror efforts.
According to Turkey’s interpretation, the support demonstrations for the PKK are an example of terrorists being allowed to walk freely on the streets in Sweden.
Swedish Turkey expert Paul Levin assessed to before the Vilnius meeting that tightening the rules for demonstrations under pressure from Turkey would be very difficult.
Turkey’s pressure does not seem to be ending soon.