Turkey's Grand National Assembly has approved Sweden's accession to NATO. The document was sent to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for signature.
Now Stockholm only needs to get Hungary's consent, Bloomberg writes.
A similar process was previously completed by Finland, which officially joined the alliance on April 4, 2023.
In the spring of 2022, Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO. Accession negotiations led to the signing of the Madrid Memorandum in June 2022, which was a roadmap for the Nordic countries' accession process.
However, Turkey's dissatisfaction with Sweden's actions, as well as the demand to recognize the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as a terrorist organization, led to the suspension of the accession process in January 2023.
Ankara's demands include not only the recognition of the PKK as a terrorist organization, but also the extradition of its members.
In response, Sweden has stated that it adheres to its own criteria for NATO membership, but has separately tightened its anti-terrorism laws and lifted restrictions on arms exports to Turkey.
Turkey has also linked its approval to the US Congress' decision to sell it F-16 Block 70 fighter jets.
The deal was initiated in 2021, and currently, U.S. congressmen have expressed their willingness to support the deal if Turkey withdraws its objections to Sweden's accession to NATO.
Background. As a reminder, the chairman of NATO's military committee said that we should be prepared for a war with Russia in the next 20 years.