On Tuesday, the Swedish prime minister acknowledged that the likelihood of Finland joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ahead of Sweden is high, especially given Turkey’s objections to Stockholm’s membership.
“The likelihood of accession happening at different paces is high,” conservative Ulf Kristersson said at a press conference on Tuesday.
“It has become clear in recent weeks [porque] Turkish partner hinted that he was ready [aceitar] Finland, but not Sweden,” he said.
The two Scandinavian countries have been NATO candidates for over a year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and are still hoping to become members of the organization before the next NATO summit scheduled for July in Vilnius, Lithuania.
However, while Helsinki’s path seems open and unhindered, Stockholm’s accession is met with resistance from Turkey (each state has a veto), which criticizes Sweden, among other things, for not extraditing persons accused of belonging to Kurdish organizations declared Turkish government. authorities to be terrorist groups.
The situation worsened after a diplomatic incident in January when an extremist burned the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in Stockholm, halting talks for several weeks.
Hungary and Turkey are the only members of the Atlantic Alliance that have not yet ratified the entry of the two Nordic countries, but in the case of Budapest, the reason is presented as solidarity with Turkey.
However, the Hungarian parliament began considering the issue earlier this month with the support of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government, and NATO hopes this will lead to a “quick decision”.
The prospects for a change of heart from Turkey are much more uncertain as outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been in power for 20 years, will run for a new term in the May 14 elections.
Sweden hopes that the path to NATO will open after the elections in Turkey, where the opposition is nominating a single candidate against Erdogan.
The remaining member states signed the accession agreement between Sweden and Finland on 5 July 2022, but the accession process will only be completed when all states ratify the protocol.
“Turkey believes that we have not gone all the way yet,” Swedish negotiator Oskar Steenström explained on Tuesday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg first mentioned in February the possibility of countries joining in two stages.