Sweden sets NATO benefits as membership bid looms, Turkey opposes

Swedish NATO membership would boost national security and help stabilize the Nordic and Baltic regions, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday, a day after neighboring Finland said it would seek to join the US-led alliance. United without delay.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced Sweden, and its closest military partner Finland, to publicly choose sides after remaining outside the military alliance since it was founded in 1949 to counter the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Stockholm is widely expected to follow Helsinki’s lead and could apply to join the 30-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Monday.

“Swedish NATO membership would raise the threshold for military conflicts and thus have a conflict-preventing effect in Northern Europe,” Linde told reporters as he presented the findings of a security review of all the parties that examined the pros and cons of NATO membership for Sweden. .

“The most important consequence of Swedish membership in NATO would be that Sweden would be part of NATO’s collective security and would be included in the security guarantees according to… article 5.”

Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty says that an attack against any NATO country must be seen as an attack against all.

Although Sweden and Finland have long had close relations with NATO and regularly participate in exercises and its high-level meetings, they are not covered by its security guarantee.

The government said the report did not constitute a recommendation to join NATO.

The Left and the Greens were the only parties that did not support the report’s conclusions.

An application would have to be approved by all NATO countries and, later, by the Swedish parliament.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that it was not possible for NATO member Turkey to support Sweden and Finland’s membership because, he said, the two countries were “home to many terrorist organizations.”

Turkey has in the past criticized Sweden and other Western European countries for their handling of organizations Ankara views as terrorists, including the Kurdish militant groups PKK and YPG and followers of US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Linde said Sweden nonetheless hoped to gain unanimous support in NATO if it applied and the two Nordic countries had “very, very strong support” from major member states with whom Turkey had an interest in good relations.

He added that he would discuss the situation at an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Berlin over the weekend to which both Sweden and Finland were invited.

At the Pentagon, spokesman John Kirby said Ankara’s position in the NATO alliance had not changed due to Erdogan’s comments.

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto advised patience. “It won’t happen in a day,” he told reporters, adding that he was scheduled to meet his Turkish counterpart in Berlin on Saturday.

The top US diplomat for Europe at the State Department said Friday that the United States planned to raise the issue with Turkey in Berlin.

“In terms of the comments that President Erdogan has made, we are working to clarify Turkey’s position,” Karen Donfried, assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, told reporters in a call.

“Turkey and Sweden have worked very effectively in the context of NATO,” he added.

The White House said on Friday that President Joe Biden had spoken by phone with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö.

“President Biden underscored his support for NATO’s open door policy and the right of Finland and Sweden to decide their own future, foreign policy and security arrangements,” the White House said in a statement.

Finnish and Swedish NATO membership would redraw the geopolitical map of northern Europe and create a largely unbroken ribbon of member states confronting Russia from the Arctic to the Black Sea.

On Thursday, Finland’s president and prime minister said the country, which shares a 1,300-kilometre (810-mile) border and a difficult past with Russia, must apply to join the NATO military alliance “without delay.” ”.

Russia said Finland’s offer was a hostile move that posed a threat to its security.

Moscow said in April that it could station nuclear-armed missiles in the Russian territory of Kaliningrad, located between NATO members Poland and Lithuania in the Baltic Sea, if Finland or Sweden joined the defense alliance.

“If Sweden chooses to seek NATO membership, there is a risk of a reaction from Russia,” Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said. “Let me say that in such a case, we are prepared to face any counter-response.”

President Niinistö said threats from Russia were expected. “We cannot go back to how we were used to,” the Swedish news agency TT said on Friday. “But Russia should also have an interest in seeing that we don’t have high tensions on the border all the time.”

He said he planned to call Russian President Vladimir Putin and “tell him that the situation has changed, as we both know.”

Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors and give you a concise summary of the day’s biggest headlines. sign up today.