The Turkish parliament voted Tuesday to approve Sweden\u2019s NATO membership bid, bringing the Nordic country one step closer to joining the military alliance after months of delays. <\/p>\n
Of the 346 members of parliament who voted, 287 were in favor of Sweden\u2019s accession and 55 voted to reject it. Four others abstained from voting. <\/p>\n
The vote was the second step of Turkey\u2019s ratification process after the parliament\u2019s Foreign Affairs Commission approved the bid last month. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u00a0can now sign the protocol into law. <\/p>\n
The outcome on Tuesday cleared a significant hurdle for the Nordic country\u2019s accession into the military alliance, with Hungary now set to be the only member state that has not yet ratified Sweden\u2019s accession. <\/p>\n
However, on Tuesday, Hungary\u2019s Prime Minister Victor Orban said he had invited his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to visit Hungary to negotiate the terms of Sweden\u2019s accession. <\/p>\n
Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022 following Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year. Finland joined NATO in April 2023, doubling the alliance\u2019s border with Russia, <\/strong>but Sweden has faced numerous delays in its path to accession. <\/p>\n Erdogan initially objected to Sweden\u2019s membership bid, accusing Swedish officials of being too lenient on militant groups, including the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK). Since applying, Sweden has tightened its anti-terror legislation and agreed to work more closely with Turkey on security concerns. <\/p>\n Erdogan\u2019s approval of Sweden\u2019s accession bid also rides on a commitment by the United States, with the Turkish\u00a0president signaling that he won\u2019t sign the protocol into law unless the US approves the sale of F-16\u00a0fighter jets\u00a0to Turkey. <\/p>\n US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin said on Tuesday that Congress, however, is waiting to see the accession documents completed before moving forward on the matter. <\/p>\n Following Tuesday\u2019s Turkish parliamentary vote, Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said Sweden was \u201cone step closer to becoming a full member of NATO.\u201d <\/p>\n The US Ambassador to Turkey Jeffry Flake reiterated the sentiment in a post on X, saying \u201cSweden\u2019s accession to NATO is a critical step in strengthening the alliance\u201d and that he \u201cgreatly appreciate the Turkish\u2019s parliament\u2019s decision to approve Sweden\u2019s entry into NATO.\u201d <\/p>\n The German government welcomed the outcome of the Turkish parliamentary vote. The federal government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement that Finland\u2019s accession last April and Sweden\u2019s \u201cforthcoming accession\u201d were a \u201cdirect reaction to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.\u201d <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated. <\/p>\n\n The Turkish parliament voted Tuesday to approve Sweden\u2019s NATO membership bid, bringing the Nordic country one step closer to joining the military alliance after months of delays. Of the 346 members of parliament who voted, 287 were in favor of Sweden\u2019s accession and 55 voted to reject it. Four others abstained from voting. The vote <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14483,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}