VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Sweden’s foreign minister expressed optimism on Monday that Turkey will drop its objections to Sweden’s NATO membership, saying the Nordic country’s membership is a matter of when, no if.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson were due to meet later Monday in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, ahead of a two-day NATO summit.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström told public broadcaster SVT that he expects Turkey to eventually signal that it will let Sweden join the alliance, although he was unable to say if that would happen at the annual summit.
“What we are counting on, of course, is to reach a point where we will receive a message from President Erdogan that there will be what you might call a green light … a message that the process of ratification in the Turkish Parliament can begin,” Billström said.
Turkey has blocked Sweden’s NATO membership, saying it must do more to crack down on Kurdish militants and other groups Ankara sees as threats to its national security. Anti-Turkish and anti-Islam protests in Stockholm have raised doubts that a deal can be reached before the alliance summit.
Billström said Sweden had fulfilled its part of a tripartite agreement that Sweden, Finland and Turkey signed at the NATO summit in Madrid last year.
“We should consider it a settled question in the sense that it’s not a question of if. As part of the NATO summit in Madrid last year, Turkey has already granted Sweden NATO guest status. So it’s a question of when,” he said.
Billström said he expected Hungary, which also has not ratified Sweden’s membership, to do so before Turkey.
Previously non-aligned Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year after Russia invaded Ukraine. Finland joined in April this year.