The Turkish parliament has given its long-awaited approval to Sweden’s membership of Nato, bringing the Nordic country significantly closer to joining the western military alliance after months in limbo.
Three months after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan submitted a bill on approving membership to parliament, MPs voted in favour of ratifying it late on Tuesday night.
In a letter, he wrote: “I believe that a more intensive dialogue could contribute to reinforcing trust between our countries and institutions thus allowing to further strengthen our political and security arrangements.”
Sweden applied to join Nato in May 2022, at the same time as Finland, in a historic shift in its security policy prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February earlier that year.
Finland finally joined last year but Ankara pressed Stockholm to toughen its stance on members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) based in Sweden, which the US and the EU as well as Turkey deem a terrorist group.
While the decision is formally up to parliament, Orbán’s tight grip on his ruling Fidesz party means that the ratification, de facto, is in the hands of the prime minister.Hungarian officials have in the past presented different narratives domestically about Sweden’s bid, while insisting to western allies that Budapest would not be last to sign off.A senior European diplomat said: “It is crucial this dossier moves forward sooner rather than later and there are indeed signals all remaining allies understood the importance of having Sweden in Nato as soon as possible.
The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 248 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Turkish parliament has given its long-awaited approval to Sweden’s membership of Nato, bringing the Nordic country significantly closer to joining the western military alliance after months in limbo.
Three months after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan submitted a bill on approving membership to parliament, MPs voted in favour of ratifying it late on Tuesday night.
In a letter, he wrote: “I believe that a more intensive dialogue could contribute to reinforcing trust between our countries and institutions thus allowing to further strengthen our political and security arrangements.”
Sweden applied to join Nato in May 2022, at the same time as Finland, in a historic shift in its security policy prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February earlier that year.
Finland finally joined last year but Ankara pressed Stockholm to toughen its stance on members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) based in Sweden, which the US and the EU as well as Turkey deem a terrorist group.
While the decision is formally up to parliament, Orbán’s tight grip on his ruling Fidesz party means that the ratification, de facto, is in the hands of the prime minister.Hungarian officials have in the past presented different narratives domestically about Sweden’s bid, while insisting to western allies that Budapest would not be last to sign off.A senior European diplomat said: “It is crucial this dossier moves forward sooner rather than later and there are indeed signals all remaining allies understood the importance of having Sweden in Nato as soon as possible.
The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 248 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!