Sweden’s bid to join the NATO alliance moved forward on Tuesday afternoon after members of the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee finally voted to allow the Nordic country to join, Turkish media reported.
Turkey and Hungary were two NATO members considered as the two holdouts in Sweden’s bid, amid the still ongoing and widespread conflict in Ukraine following a Russian invasion of that country.
“I welcome the vote by the Turkish parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership. I count on Türkiye and also Hungary to now complete their ratifications as soon as possible. Sweden’s membership will make NATO stronger,” was the statement issued shortly after the development by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Turkey’s grand assembly plenum must still ratify the accession bid, with a date for such a vote still pending.
“We welcome that the foreign affairs committee in Turkey approved Sweden’s NATO application. The next step is for parliament to vote on the issue. We look forward to becoming a member of NATO,” was the post on X (formerly Twitter) by Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billström.
All 31 NATO member-states must vote in favor of a country’s membership for it to join.
