Sweden NATO Goal Enters Home Stretch as Turkey Upholds Block

(Bloomberg) -- Sweden’s prime minister will come face to face with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, as Ulf Kristersson is making a last-ditch push to convince Turkey that his nation should be allowed to join NATO.

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On the home stretch before a key meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius starting Tuesday, the two will work to pave way for Sweden’s membership, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters. The intention is to end a year-long stalemate that’s stunted the alliance’s northern expansion.

Armed with a show of support from US President Joe Biden, Swedish officials met with their Turkish counterparts at NATO’s Brussels headquarters on Thursday.

“Today, we reaffirmed that Sweden’s membership is within reach,” Stoltenberg said. “It’s absolutely possible to have a positive decision at the summit next week.”

Bolstered by support from the alliance’s biggest member, Sweden is looking to persuade the Turkish president to drop his objections at next week’s summit and declare his intent to ratify the Nordic country’s accession. That may have become easier after a Swedish court on Thursday found a Turkish national guilty of attempted extortion on behalf of the militant Kurdish group PKK, sentencing him to four and a half years in prison and ordering his extradition to Turkey after the sentence has been served.

Read More: Sweden Convicts PKK Supporter as NATO Talks With Turkey Continue

The diplomatic push on Thursday saw Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom meet with two new counterparts: Turkey’s Hakan Fidan and Finland’s Elina Valtonen, both of whom took their positions in June following elections in their countries.

“In the meeting, we all agreed that we have made good progress,” Stoltenberg told reporters.

“What is possible and what we are all working to achieve is a positive decision at the summit, where Turkiye makes clear they are ready to ratify,” the secretary general said. “Any further delay in Sweden’s membership would be welcomed by the PKK and President Putin” of Russia, he said.

Monday’s meeting of Swedish and Turkish leaders will be “of high importance,” Billstrom said, adding that “the most important thing is to get an announcement from Turkey that the ratification process will start. Whether that is delivered before or during the summit is of less importance.”

While Turkey has said it plans to take stock of the situation after Thursday’s talks, comments earlier in the week by Erdogan have suggested there’s little chance of a significant breakthrough amid a disagreement over the burning of a Koran in Stockholm. Turkey’s opposition stems from its view that Sweden isn’t doing enough to clamp down on groups Ankara views as terrorist.

Sweden, meanwhile, has lifted a ban on arms sales to Turkey and amended its anti-terrorism laws as part of a deal clinched last year to break the impasse. In Sweden’s view, the new legal measures satisfy its last remaining obligation under an agreement signed at NATO’s Madrid summit to pave the way for ratification.

More than half of Swedes are in favor of banning the incineration of holy scriptures in public, according to an opinion poll published by public broadcaster SVT.

Fellow applicant Finland won Turkey’s approval three months ago and joined the alliance in April.

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Turkey wants Sweden to join NATO, officials who are directly familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, reiterating Ankara’s insistence that the Nordic country must uphold pledges to crack down on terrorism. They also rebuffed any suggestion that Turkey’s request to buy F-16 warplanes from the US could be linked to its approval of the Nordic nation’s membership in NATO.

Kristersson on Wednesday rejected throwing in the towel, saying “nothing has been determined, in either direction.”

“We are approaching the Vilnius summit and I feel strengthened by the fact that all allies feel that this is a natural point in time to make the necessary decisions,” he told reporters in Washington following his meeting with Biden. “But we won’t make Turkey’s decision — we respect that only Turkey can do that.”

The verdict announced Thursday relates to an incident in January, when the man, Yahya Gungor, entered a Stockholm restaurant, threatened a Kurdish staff member and fired a revolver. When he was arrested a few weeks later, police found ammunition and a large PKK flag in his apartment, while the revolver was retrieved below his balcony.

“The investigation shows that the PKK is running very extensive money-collection activities in Europe, which includes extortion targeting Kurdish business owners,” the court said in a statement.

Another key issue for NATO members at the Vilnius summit is signing off on three regional defense plans for the first time since the end of the Cold War. The plans spell out in detail how countries will defend the alliance if it comes under attack by Russia or terror groups and cover the Atlantic and High North, Europe North of the Alps as well as South of the Alps, including in the Black Sea region.

But that hasn’t gone without a hitch. Turkey and Greece have been in a dispute over the terminology of straits in the Mediterranean region, which has so far prevented the alliance from clearing the blueprints at committee level ahead of the leaders’ summit, according to a senior US defense official. Still, allies are hopeful the issue will get resolved by the summit, the official said, adding that Turkey moved ahead along with other allies to assign troops to the plans at a recent pledging conference.

(Updates with Monday meeting in lead, comments from Stoltenberg from second paragraph.)

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