Minister: Sweden has ‘strong support’ to join NATO in July

There is strong support for Sweden to join the NATO Alliance in July, said Swedish Defence Minister Pål Jonson as negotiations between both countries are set to pick up again on Wednesday, a few days after Sweden extradited a PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) supporter to Turkey for the first time.

Over the weekend, the Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed that an official-level meeting between NATO, Sweden and Turkey would take place on Wednesday to discuss NATO membership.

Jonson welcomed the meeting and declared that its focus would be the implementation of the trilateral memorandum agreed by Sweden, Finland and Turkey last summer.

“We believe that there is strong support for our application, and we believe that it would be important for NATO that we become full members for the Vilnius Summit”, Jonsson said on broadcaster SVT’s program Morgonstudion.

“The entire northern flank would be strengthened by Sweden also becoming a full member, which would increase the defensibility of Finland and the Baltic countries”, he added.

On 11-12 July, the heads of state and government of the NATO countries will gather in Vilnius, where, among other things, the appointment of a new secretary general is expected and where Sweden’s long-delayed application will be discussed.

On the same day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s new security advisor Akif Cagatay Kilic said in a TV interview that Sweden is now closer to getting Turkey’s NATO approval than a year ago.

In a bid to placate Turkey, the recently elected right-wing Swedish government announced in November that it was distancing itself from the Kurdish organisations YPG and PYD as they had too close ties to the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the US and the EU.

Erdogan’s security advisor emphasised that there are still things to discuss as Turkey is unhappy with Sweden’s allegedly complacent stance towards the terrorist-classified PKK and other groups that Turkey claims are terrorists, namely Kurdish opponents that Stockholm refused to extradite to Turkey.

Incidentally, the Swedish government decided on Monday to extradite a PKK supporter to Turkey. The man was convicted of drug offences in Turkey in 2013, but after serving less than six months of his sentence, he was released on parole, left Turkey legally and later moved to Sweden, where he obtained a work permit.

According to the Swedish media, the 35-year-old man argued that the extradition request to serve a sentence for drug offences is a pretext and that the “real reason” for his extradition request is that he is a Kurd, has actively promoted the Kurdish cause, and supports the YPG and the PKK.

The trilateral meeting is the first since the election in Turkey, where President Erdogan was re-elected. The election has been a stumbling block for the negotiations, and NATO has therefore kept a low profile until it is over.

(Charles Szumski | EURACTIV.com)