The White House hailed the move – after considering new forms of pressure on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and said it would bolster the alliance.
Turkey on Monday dropped its months-long opposition to Sweden becoming a member of NATO, a move the White House hailed and said will bolster the alliance.
For more than a year, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had blocked the ascension of Sweden to the alliance – which requires unanimous support for new membership – largely over concerns about Stockholm’s willingness to harbor Kurdish dissidents that Erdogan considers terrorists.
President Joe Biden, who was touring the U.K. on Monday ahead of traveling to Lithuania for a NATO summit beginning Tuesday, said in a statement that he welcomed the development and the commitment by Turkey to a “swift ratification.”
“I look forward to welcoming Prime Minister Kristersson and Sweden as our 32nd NATO Ally,” he said.
Biden also thanked NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, whose tenure was just extended for an extra year.
In a statement issued by Stoltenberg, Sweden and Erdogan, the two countries agreed that they would establish a “new bilateral security compact” and that Sweden will present a “roadmap as the basis of its continued fight against terrorism in all its forms.”
The statement also noted that Sweden had changed its laws, expanded cooperation efforts regarding counterterrorism against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and would restart arms exports to Turkey had it suspended in 2019 after Turkey’s incursion into Syria to target Kurdish militia.
Sweden, a member of the EU, also suggested it would support Erdogan’s aspirations of Turkey joining the economic bloc.
The U.S. was reportedly considering holding up planned shipments of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey if it continued stonewalling Sweden’s membership in NATO. Only Hungary under the leadership of Viktor Oban – who has also faced criticisms for troubling moves toward autocracy – joined Erdogan in holding out support.
Supporters see their membership as an unparalleled condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in which previously non-aligned countries now seek to join the alliance originally formed to offset the Soviet Union.
Following the surprising willingness of Sweden to break from its traditional policy of non-alignment and join the alliance – a move matched by Finland, which joined in April – most analysts believed the new membership would be swiftly advanced by the Cold War-era bloc.
“They will bring substantial new military capabilities, including advanced air and submarine capabilities, that will alter the security architecture of northern Europe and help deter further Russian aggression,” former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year.
“Finland and Sweden are right to have concluded from the tragic war being waged in Ukraine that they need more security,” The Economist noted in an analysis in May 2020. “Putin is dangerous and unpredictable not because of NATO, but because of the way he has chosen to govern Russia.”
Putin almost immediately issued thinly veiled threats, saying that same month that Russia would study the potential threats the new membership would pose and “react accordingly.”
More recently, Russian officials have attempted to downplay the significance of the new members. Dmitry Medvedev, former president and current deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, pushed back on claims last week that Russia sought to contain NATO, including Sweden and Finland’s joining.
“It is not in our power and capabilities, and these two Scandinavian countries were already associated with the alliance,” Medvedev said on July 4, according to a translation.
He added, “We always asked for only one thing – to take into account our concerns” regarding former Soviet countries’ potentially joining NATO – one of the fears that the Kremlin uses to justify its invasion of Ukraine.