NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday he has called a meeting of senior officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland on July 6 to try to overcome Turkish objections to Sweden joining the military organization.
Hungarian lawmakers, meanwhile, said a long-delayed vote in parliament on ratifying Sweden’s NATO accession bid would not happen until the autumn legislative session. That would almost certainly mean the Nordic nation will not join in time for a major July 11-12 summit.
Calling the July 6 pre-summit meeting had represented a last-ditch effort by Stoltenberg to have the Nordic country standing among NATO’s ranks as a member for the summit. That would be a highly symbolic moment and another indication of how Russia’s war in Ukraine is driving countries to join the Western alliance.
“The time is now to welcome Sweden as a full member of NATO,” Stoltenberg told reporters. Foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs and security advisers from Turkey, Sweden and Finland, which joined NATO in April, will be taking part in the talks in Brussels.
NATO requires the unanimous approval of all members to expand. Turkey accuses Sweden of being too lenient on groups that Ankara says pose a security threat, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.
Fearing they might be targeted by Moscow after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Sweden and Finland abandoned their traditional positions of military nonalignment to seek protection under NATO’s security umbrella.
Hungary is also delaying its approval of Sweden’s candidacy but has never clearly stated publicly what its concerns are. NATO officials expect that it will follow suit once Turkey lifts its objections.
In a Facebook post, Agnes Vadai, a lawmaker with Hungary’s opposition Democratic Coalition party, wrote that Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his governing Fidesz party would not schedule a vote on Sweden’s accession during its final spring session next week.
Another lawmaker from the Democratic Coalition also confirmed that the vote would be delayed.
The postponement is the latest in a long succession of delays that have gone on for a year, with high-ranking Hungarian officials saying they support Sweden’s membership while also making <a href=”https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-politics-hungary-government-sweden-8ca1cf7cae4f88805bca2732a03e7f45″>vague demands from Stockholm</a> as a condition for approval.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Turkey and Hungary to quickly approve Sweden’s NATO accession.
“It’s now time … to allow Sweden to attend the Vilnius summit as an ally,” Macron said in a joint declaration with Stoltenberg ahead of a working meeting Wednesday in Paris. “Now, more than ever, is the time to make decisions that will ensure the unity and stability of the continent.”
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Wednesday that Sweden still wanted to join NATO before or at its summit in Vilnius next month although it was not certain it would be able to do so by then.
Sweden has set its sights on joining at the alliance’s summit and while it has strong support from other members including the United States, both Turkey and Hungary have so far held back from ratification.
“Sweden will become a NATO member,” Kristersson said in an interview with public service broadcaster SVT.
“Nobody can promise it will happen specifically in Vilnius or right ahead of Vilnius, even if that has been our ambition all along. And that is an ambition we share with every other NATO country as well.”
Meanwhile, Sweden has said freedom of speech is firmly enshrined in its constitution and that it has lived up to all the requirements set out in an agreement with Turkey and Finland struck in Madrid a year ago.
“We’ve also said that we respect that it is Turkey that makes Turkish decisions and it is good we now have another meeting … and maybe we can address the odd question mark ahead of the Vilnius summit in that kind of conversation,” Kristersson said.
—With files from Reuters