Turkey Not to Ratify Sweden's NATO Membership in Time for Upcoming FMs' Meeting
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Turkish authorities have informed NATO that they will not be able to ratify Sweden's membership application before the meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers in Brussels on November 28-29, Reuters reported.
The news agency's sources said that the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs commission may resume discussions on ratification on November 28 or 29, TASS reported.
Some NATO officials expected that Sweden would become a member of the alliance at the foreign ministers' meeting and that a ceremony would be organized, Reuters added.
The bill must first be ratified by the Turkish parliamentary commission, then the entire parliament will vote on it, however, this vote could take a few days or weeks after the commission's decision. After that, the document must be signed by the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The protocol on Sweden's accession to NATO has so far been ratified by 31 countries of the alliance, only Hungary and Turkey have not approved it. An agreement was reached between NATO, Turkey and Sweden on Ankara's early ratification of the document before the alliance's summit in Vilnius in July.
However, the Turkish side then put forward a number of conditions for the approval of the application, including cooperation in fighting terrorism and accelerating economic and visa integration with the European Union.
