Turkey’s Parliament has enabled its foreign affairs committee to work during its more than two-month summer recess that started on Saturday, allowing the country to speed up its ratification process of Sweden’s membership in NATO.
The Parliament’s decision, published by the Official Gazette on Saturday, effectively cleared the way for deliberations on Sweden’s NATO bid without delay if asked by the government. Parliament voted to keep the foreign affairs committee on standby, the Gazette said, before it went into recess early Saturday until 0ct. 1.
Turkey Agrees to Back Sweden’s NATO Bid in Boost to Alliance
Turkey, the only other NATO member along with Hungary that has yet to approve Sweden’s bid, agreed to support its membership on Monday and the Nordic country made various pledges to Ankara after months of negotiations.
Sweden’s accession would clinch NATO’s control of the Baltic Sea and give the alliance the upper hand in the Arctic region — both strategic gateways for Russia — even as Moscow is bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on Wednesday at the end of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, said his government would submit the bill after Stockholm shares a new plan about cracking down on Kurdish separatist groups as well as alleged supporters of a failed coup attempt against Erdogan’s government on July 15, 2016.
Erdogan Hints Turkey to Ratify Sweden NATO Bid in Few Months
Erdogan is scheduled to attend a ceremony at Parliament on Saturday, the anniversary of that coup attempt, to remember the hundreds of people killed as well as attacks on the Parliament building and several other government offices by F-16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships.
