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NATO

Turkey to hold Nato talks with Sweden and Finland in March

Nato accession talks are set to be held between Turkey, Sweden and Finland next month, after the former postponed them over a row about protests in Stockholm.

Turkey to hold Nato talks with Sweden and Finland in March
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at Nato talks with Sweden and Finland last year. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

“The meeting will be held on March 9th,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told a news conference in Ankara, alongside his Hungarian counterpart.

Bids to join Nato must be ratified by all members of the alliance, of which Turkey is a member.

But Ankara was outraged by the protests in January that included the burning of the Koran outside its embassy in Stockholm.

In turn Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Sweden he would not support its bid to join the Western US-led defence alliance.

Erdogan has dug in his heels heading into a close presidential election in which he is trying to energise his nationalist electoral base.

Previous two rounds of the tri-party Nato talks were attended by foreign ministry officials and focused on a specific list of Turkish demands, which include the expulsion of dozens of mostly Kurdish suspects.

Çavuşoğlu said the third planned meeting would be held in Brussels.

“It’s not possible for us to give consent (to a Nato bid) before Sweden fulfils its commitments” under a three-party protocol signed in Madrid in June, he said.

Çavuşoğlu also made it clear that Turkey looked warmly on Finland’s bid.

“We may separate Sweden and Finland’s membership process,” he said.

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MILITARY

Sweden’s parliament votes by huge majority in favour of Nato accession

Sweden's parliament has voted to ratify the country's accession to the Nato defence alliance, with its historic bill to end two centuries of non-alignment passing with a margin of 269 to 37.

Sweden’s parliament votes by huge majority in favour of Nato accession

During the six-hour debate over the bill, Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, said he was convinced that the country’s membership would be ratified by Turkey and Hungary, the two hold-outs in the 30-member alliance, before the summit due to be held in Vilnius in the second week of July. 

“It is obvious that we are going to be able to be members at Vilnius,” he said during the debate, pointing to the backing of the other 28 member states and strong support from the US. “The strength that we have behind us is so tangible that it’s possible to come to such a judgement.”

If Sweden were not to be a member before the summer, he continued, it would put Nato’s open-door policy, a key part of its framework, in question. 

Only two of the eight parties in the Swedish parliament voted against the bill, the Left Party and the Green Party, with their MPs providing all of the 37 “no” votes. A further 43 MPs were absent. 

“It is problematic to join a military alliance with countries which are not democratic, and where we see daily that democracy is withering,” said Håkan Svenneling, the Left Party’s foreign policy spokesperson. “They are now trying to use our application to silence our voice on democracy and human rights.” 

The two parties were also critical of the fact that Sweden was now joining an alliance backed by nuclear weapons. 

“The Nato nuclear alliance is built on the idea of using nuclear weapons as a method of deterrence,” said the Green Party’s Jacob Risberg. “The Green Party do not believe in that doctrine, but believe quite the contrary, that this could lead to more conflict.” 

The Social Democrat’s foreign policy spokesperson Morgan Johansson said he was confident that Sweden would not be made to host nuclear weapons on its territory, even though its agreement with Nato contains no formal statement ruling this out. 

The government’s Nato proposition states that “there is no reason to have nuclear weapons or permanent bases on Swedish territory in peacetime”. 

“I feel completely confident in the test which has been drawn up. There is nothing at all pushing for Sweden to be forced to host bases or nuclear weapons,” he said. 

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