The Turkish parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee was poised on Tuesday to resume deliberations on Sweden\u2019s bid to join NATO, days after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan linked the Nordic country\u2019s admission to US approval of Turkiye\u2019s request to purchase F-16 fighter jets. NATO-member Turkey lifted its objection to Sweden joining the trans-Atlantic alliance in July but the ratification process has since stalled in parliament.<\/p>\n
Turkiye accuses Sweden of not taking Turkiye\u2019s security concerns seriously enough, including its fight against Kurdish militants and other groups that Ankara considers to be security threats. This month, Erdogan threw another obstacle by openly linking ratification of Sweden\u2019s NATO membership to the US Congress\u2019 approval of Turkiye\u2019s request to purchase 40 new F-16 fighter jets and kits to modernise its existing fleet.<\/p>\n
The Turkish leader also called on the two legislatures to act \u201csimultaneously\u201d and said Canada and other NATO allies must lift arms embargoes imposed on Turkiye. The White House has backed the Turkish F-16 request but there is strong opposition in Congress to military sales to Turkiye. The Turkish parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee had begun discussing Sweden\u2019s membership in NATO last month.<\/p>\n
The meeting however, was adjourned after legislators from Erdogan\u2019s ruling party submitted a motion for a postponement on grounds that some issues needed more clarification and that negotiations with Sweden had not \u201cmatured\u201d enough. If approved by the committee, Sweden\u2019s bid would then need to be approved by the full assembly. Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO\u2019s security umbrella, following Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n
Finland joined the alliance in April, becoming NATO\u2019s 31st member, after Turkiye\u2019s parliament ratified the Nordic country\u2019s bid. NATO requires the unanimous approval of all existing members to expand, and Turkiye and Hungary are the only countries that have been holding out. Hungary has stalled Sweden\u2019s bid, alleging that Swedish politicians have told \u201cblatant lies\u201d about the condition of Hungary\u2019s democracy. The delays have frustrated other NATO allies who were swift to accept Sweden and Finland into the alliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Turkish parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee was poised on Tuesday to resume deliberations on Sweden\u2019s bid to join NATO, days\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":20873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[6445,5854,6447,6446,3194,2612,977,976,6443,265,6444,3921,3285,6258,672],"class_list":["post-20868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-arms-embargo","tag-delayed","tag-expansion","tag-f-16-fighter-jets","tag-finland","tag-hungary","tag-membership","tag-nato","tag-ratification","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-stalled-process","tag-sweden","tag-turkish-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-turkiye","tag-us-congress"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}