Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg is confident that Sweden will become a member of the military alliance. Although the respective demand has previously been blocked by Turkey, newly reelected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has eased his position since winning the runoff on Sunday.
Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Jean Asselborn now waits for a clear statement from Turkey. In conversation with Deutschlandfunk on Tuesday, the politician argued that the initial blocking of the admission requests of Sweden and Finland was an election manoeuvre: “A clear statement could be made by the Turkish side that the election is over and that actually nothing is in the way anymore, that Turkey says yes to ... millions of people in Sweden who are afraid of what is happening in Russia and in Ukraine and who want to become NATO members.”
Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs will not participate in the informal NATO meeting of foreign affairs ministers in Oslo this week. Minister Asselborn believes that President Erdogan might want to make the announcement of Turkey’s support himself during the next summit in July.
Turkey’s opposition fears that Erdogan will become even more authoritarian in the next five years. Minister Asselborn agrees that Europe needs to understand with whom they are dealing: “This excessive nationalism is like Trump. It is also like Putin, the hate against LGBT people being used to promote the downfall of the west. And it is like Orban to benefit from the EU while also inciting people against it. That is reality.”
The politician finally addressed Turkey’s admission to the EU, noting that there is no point in blocking the attempt as this would only take away the hope of people who did not vote for Erdogan and who want to see human rights defended in their home.
