When Sweden initially first made its bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey put off the vote and asked for additional "security concessions" from Sweden before it voted.
Turkey
had objected to the inclusion of Sweden and Finland, each of which applied for NATO inclusion following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Hungary was another country that pushed against the Nordic states joining the military alliance-though Finland would eventually be voted in.
However, according to Reuters, Turkey is slated to approve Sweden's membership after delays lasting nearly two years.
As soon as Turkey's general assembly votes in favor of the move, President Tayyip Erdogan is expected to sign it into law within days. This will leave Hungary the only dissenting vote to Sweden's inclusion.
Hungary, whose parliament is in recess until February, had pledged to not be the lone holdout. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has stated that an invitation was sent to his Swedish counterpart to negotiate other measures that could help the country join the military bloc.
"I don't see any reason to negotiate in the current situation, though ... we can have a dialogue and continue to discuss questions," Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Swedish news agency TT.
Turkey, which had criticized sanctions imposed on Moscow due to the war in Ukraine, while also opposing the war, cautioned that the inclusion of Sweden and Finland had the potential to antagonize Russia.
When Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO in 2022, Turkey unexpectedly objected over what it said was the two countries' protection of groups that Ankara deems terrorists. Finally, Turkey endorsed membership for Finland last year but kept Sweden waiting.
Ankara urged Stockholm to crack down on local members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which both the European Union and the United States characterize as terrorists. Sweden, Finland, Canada, and the Netherlands also took steps to relax Turkey's arms-export policies.
