(Istanbul) Turkish MPs resumed examination of Sweden’s NATO accession protocol on Tuesday, with the hope of seeing it approved before the New Year in exchange for an American commitment to F-16 aircraft .
Turkey is the last member of the Atlantic Alliance with Hungary to block the road to Stockholm, increasing demands and pretexts for ten months to justify its reluctance.
Debate on Tuesday within the Foreign Affairs Committee, the file will then be submitted to the National Assembly for a vote.
Sweden had submitted its application at the same time as Finland – admitted in April – after the start of the Russian war in Ukraine.
“We are seeing a change in Sweden’s policy, some decisions adopted by the courts,” Fuat Oktay, AKP deputy (the ruling party), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Turkish Parliament, remarked on Monday on the private channel NTV .
“We still had some requests for additional progress” in the fight against terrorism, he added without further details.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has objected since the start of the process to Stockholm’s supposed leniency towards certain Kurdish groups, which he considers terrorists.
Above all, it seems that after a long silence from Washington, a telephone interview in mid-December with American President Joe Biden finally overcame Mr. Erdogan’s reluctance.
Announced as a simple formality in November, including by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who spoke of “a few weeks”, the examination of the accession protocol collapsed after a single meeting.
At the beginning of December, Mr. Erdogan added as a condition to Ankara’s ratification the “simultaneous” ratification by the American Congress of the sale of F-16 fighter planes to Turkey.
“All this is linked,” he warned.
Turkey had already played this card to try to obtain an American green light for the sale of F-16s, which it needs to modernize its air force.
The American government is not hostile to this sale but Congress has blocked it so far for political reasons, including tensions with Greece – also a NATO member – with which Ankara has recently become closer.
“It now seems obvious that the two processes will move forward in parallel,” the director of the German Marshall Fund in Ankara, Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, told AFP.
But, “although the questions are not related, the declarations of Turkey – and its president – supporting Hamas have further complicated the process of selling the F-16s,” notes the expert.
According to him, “there is no real consensus within Parliament, nor in the American Congress”.
“But if MM. Biden and Erdogan are showing the required will, we can hope for a near outcome.”