ISTANBUL | Turkish MPs opened NATO's doors to Sweden on Tuesday and were expected to give final confirmation of its accession immediately after approving the accession protocol in exchange for a possible American commitment to the F-16 aircraft.
The Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee in Ankara approved the text after 19 months of silence and sent it to the plenary assembly for final adoption, a formality that was supposed to follow in the coming hours or days but at some point – or at a certain point in time – that was not yet specified.
Turkey was the last member of the Atlantic Alliance with Hungary to block Sweden's path and multiply demands and pretexts to justify its reluctance.
A decision that Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström immediately welcomed: “We are happy to become a member of NATO,” he told public television station SVT Nyheter.
Sweden submitted its application at the same time as Finland, which was approved in April after the start of the Russian war in Ukraine.
“We are seeing a change in Swedish politics, some decisions are being accepted by the courts,” Fuat Oktay, AKP (the ruling party) MP and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, remarked on the Turkish parliament's private channel NTV on Monday.
“We still had some calls for further progress” in the fight against terrorism, he added, without elaborating.
“terrorists”
Since the start of the trial, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected to Stockholm's alleged leniency toward certain Kurdish groups he considers terrorists.
Above all, it seems that after a long silence from Washington, a telephone conversation in mid-December with American President Joe Biden finally overcame Mr. Erdogan's reluctance.
Announced in November as a simple formality, including by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who spoke of “a few weeks”, the examination of the accession protocol failed after a single meeting.
Then, in early December, Mr. Erdogan added the “simultaneous” ratification of the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey by the American Congress as a condition for Ankara’s ratification.
“It’s all connected,” he warned.
Turkey had already played this card to get the US green light to sell F-16s, which it needs to modernize its air force.
The American government is not hostile to this sale, but Congress has so far blocked it for political reasons, including tensions with Greece – also a member of NATO – with which Ankara has recently become closer.
“It now seems obvious that the two processes will move forward in parallel,” the director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, told AFP.
But “although the issues are unrelated, Turkey’s – and its president’s – statements in support of Hamas have further complicated the process of selling the F-16,” the expert notes.
According to him, “there is no real consensus in either the Turkish parliament or the American Congress.”
“But if MM Biden and Erdogan show the necessary will, we can hope for an early outcome.”