Sweden's NATO ratification likely to wait until after Turkey's elections
As Finland becomes a NATO member, Sweden’s options are limited before the Turkish elections of May 14.
As the transatlantic alliance welcomes Finland, Sweden's best chance seems to be to wait for the outcome of Turkey’s May 14 elections in a bid to smoothen the road to its NATO membership, despite the goodwill it has garnered in the Turkish public opinion for its support after the devastating Feb. 6 earthquakes.
Following the Turkish parliament's unanimous ratification, the Nordic country this week officially announced as a NATO member in Washington. The move decoupled Finland's and Sweden’s NATO bids officially, a possibility that Ankara has long pushed while Washington and NATO were unwilling. While NATO talks between Turkey, Finland and Sweden were ongoing, a senior bureaucrat in Turkish national security circles told Al-Monitor that his government could fast-track Helsinki into the alliance.
Throughout 2022 and early 2023, Turkish officials accused the Swedish side of providing a safe haven for groups that Ankara considers “terrorists.” These include the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which many European countries and the United States also designate as a “terrorist organization,” as well as the followers of the US-based Sunni cleric Fethullah Gulen who is accused of masterminding the 2016 coup attempt against the elected Turkish government. A series of protests in Stockholm in January — including one during which demonstrators hanged an effigy of Erdogan and another during which a far-right Danish-Swedish activist burned a copy of Islam’s holy book, the Quran — poisoned the air further and put negotiations between the Turks and the Swedes on hold.
One Turkish diplomat told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the Swedish decision-making processes, which he considered “indecisive,” were part of the problem. “If the Swedes ever ask us why we’re not letting them into NATO, I will tell them that our collective decision-making processes [in the alliance] would get much harder given the judgment of [Swedish] leaders. I will tell them, ‘You people are just not too intelligent to join,’” the diplomat said.
