“Regarding the admission of Sweden into NATO, we welcome Turkey's decision to admit Sweden into NATO, and this topic was one of the priorities of the US government in its participation in this summit,” Elizabeth Stickney, the State Department’s Arabic language spokesperson, told Rudaw’s Zinar Shino in Lithuania on Tuesday.
Sweden and Finland last year reversed their decades-long tradition of military non-alignment and applied to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Unanimous approval is required by alliance members and Turkey has used this as leverage to pressure Oslo and Helsinki to counter Kurdish groups it considers “terrorists” in exchange for Ankara’s yes on the accession.
Following a phone call with US President Joe Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday decided to accept Sweden’s ascension into the defence alliance, saying he would forward the matter to Turkey’s parliament for ratification as part of an agreement with Sweden’s prime minister.
The two presidents met in Vilnius on Tuesday. Biden thanked Erdogan for his “courage” to drop his opposition to Stockholm’s bid.
“This is a historic day,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday after he met with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson ahead of the two-day NATO summit which kicked off on Tuesday.
Ankara is hoping that ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid will lead to the US lifting objections to Turkey purchasing F-16 fighter jets. Congress opposed sales of the jets to Turkey after Ankara bought Russian S-400 missile systems in 2017.
“Regarding the F-16 file, in the viewpoint of the State Department, we support supplying Turkey with F-16 jets,” Stickney told Rudaw.
