U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan urged Turkey to ratify the membership bids of Sweden and Finland into NATO as pressure builds on two remaining holdouts to approve the expansion of the military alliance.
Officials from Turkey, Sweden and Finland have been trying to break an impasse that has held up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s expansion since the two Nordic countries were invited to join in June. Turkey, the only holdout besides Hungary, wants Sweden to crack down on groups Ankara considers as terrorist in exchange for agreeing to accession.
“I believe there is no reason it can’t be secured by the summit this summer for both Finland and for Sweden,” Sullivan told reporters ahead of talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s special adviser and spokesman Ibrahim Kalin in Washington on Tuesday.
The two men “will have the chance to talk about this issue as well as 127 other issues that are relevant to the U.S.-Turkey relationship,” Sullivan said.
Hungary, meanwhile, once again delayed a vote on the NATO enlargement that the government had said would take place the week of March 20, according to two opposition lawmakers, who cited a letter they received from Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen.
Ratification may instead happen the week of March 27 or April 3, Miklos Hajnal of the opposition Momentum party told Bloomberg by phone.
He said the government letter cited ongoing talks with the European Union’s executive about unblocking crucial funding for Hungary that’s been held up on graft and rule of law concerns. Until recently, Hungary had denied it was using NATO enlargement for leverage in funding talks.
The latest delay followed a meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Paris on Monday, where the pair discussed the ratification in the weeks ahead, according to a statement from the presidential office.
For its part, Turkey has linked Sweden’s new anti-terrorism law to the ratification and also voiced opposition to the July deadline set by its allies for enlargement completion. Finland’s application has met less resistance from Turkey, with officials from Ankara signaling their intention to proceed with the process that is backed by the U.S.
Speaking to reporters in Stockholm on Tuesday, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told his fellow citizens to brace for Finland to be admitted into NATO first.
“The impression over the past weeks is that the probability that this will happen at a different pace has increased,” Kristersson said, adding that Sweden is still better off from a national-security standpoint if Finland becomes a NATO member.
Kristersson also said that there’s significant pressure from NATO allies for Sweden’s membership to be ratified before the Vilnius summit.
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(With assistance from Samy Adghirni, Love Liman and Jordan Fabian.)
