{"id":20427,"date":"2023-12-28T00:02:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-27T22:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/?p=20427"},"modified":"2023-12-27T21:07:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T19:07:54","slug":"turkiyes-parliamentary-commission-approves-swedens-bid-to-join-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/turkiyes-parliamentary-commission-approves-swedens-bid-to-join-nato\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkiye\u2019s parliamentary commission approves Sweden\u2019s bid to join NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A panel from the Turkish parliament\u2019s key commission on foreign affairs has cleared another hurdle in Sweden\u2019s accession into the NATO alliance by approving Stockholm\u2019s NATO membership bid on December 26, 2023.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision by the parliamentary commission has paved the way for the enlargement of the military alliance after 19 months of delays in which Ankara demanded security-related concessions from Stockholm. The Nordic country dropped its decades-long policy of military neutrality and applied to join the Alliance along with Finland in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey and Hungary were the only two NATO member states that had been stalling Stockholm\u2019s request for months. After months of diplomacy and meetings between leaders and high-ranking officials from Turkey and Western countries, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to approve Sweden\u2019s NATO bid after Stockholm assured that it would take concrete steps in addressing Ankara\u2019s security-related concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now when the commission, largely comprised of Turkish Parliamentary members from Erdogan\u2019s AK Party, has voted on approving Sweden\u2019s accession into the Alliance, the next step is to seek a majority vote by the full parliament, in which the AK Party and its allies hold a majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commission head and a prominent member of the Turkish parliament, Fuat Oktay, played down expectations for a prompt vote in the complete Grand National Assembly. He informed reporters that the timing for the vote would be determined by the speaker, considering the upcoming two-week recess in early January.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Turkiye<\/a>
Turkiye and Sweden flags. (Image Credit: stockholmcf\/abdullahgul.gen.tr)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThe decision to submit it to the general assembly has been made now, but this should not be interpreted as [a sign] that it will pass the general assembly with the same speed. There is no such thing,\u201d Oktay said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement after the commission\u2019s approval, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said Sweden welcomed the move and looked forward to joining NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg also hailed the approval by the Turkish parliamentary commission. \u201cI welcome the vote by the Turkish parliament\u2019s Foreign Affairs Committee to ratify Sweden\u2019s NATO membership,\u201d Stoltenberg said, urging Turkey and fellow holdout Hungary to complete their ratifications \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Turkey\u2019s changing stance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finland and Sweden jointly applied to be a part of the NATO alliance<\/span><\/a> in May 2022, following Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Finland\u2019s request was approved by all members; however, Sweden\u2019s was opposed by Hungary and Turkey on different grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a series of back-and-forth meetings mediated by the NATO leadership, diplomatic engagements, and agreements, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his support for Sweden\u2019s application to join the NATO military alliance. The announcement came at Vilnius, Lithuania, in July 2023, where the alliance leaders had gathered for the annual NATO Summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In return for the approval, Sweden agreed to work closely to address Turkey\u2019s security concerns. NATO said in its\u00a0joint statement\u00a0that \u201cSweden has amended its constitution, changed its laws, significantly expanded its counter-terrorism cooperation against the PKK, and resumed arms exports to Turkiye,\u201d all mentioned in the 2022 Trilateral Memorandum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Ankara and Stockholm countries recognized that counter-terrorism cooperation requires long-term commitment, extending beyond Sweden\u2019s accession to NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"NATO<\/a>
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hosted a meeting between Sweden, Finland, and Turkey on July 6, 2023. (Image Credit: NATO)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

US President Joe Biden’s administration has repeatedly promised to move forward with the $20-billion F-16 sale but lawmakers have blocked it over concerns about Turkey’s alleged violations of human rights and long-running tensions with Greece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hours after Ankara\u2019s decision in Vilnius, the U.S. administration announced it would move forward with the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey in consultation with the United States Congress. Turkey had requested to buy $20 billion in F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes. However, the deal has been stalled since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A panel from the Turkish parliament\u2019s key commission on foreign affairs has cleared another hurdle in Sweden\u2019s accession into the NATO alliance by approving Stockholm\u2019s NATO membership bid on December 26, 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1],"tags":[24,357,239,304,59,596,71,20,213,82,540],"class_list":["post-20427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-finland","tag-hungary","tag-nato","tag-nordic","tag-politics","tag-russia","tag-sweden","tag-turkey","tag-turkiye"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Turkiye-GNAT-Foreign-Affairs-Commission-meeting.jpg?fit=690%2C370&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-5jt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20429,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20427\/revisions\/20429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}