BRUSSELS: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday said Turkiye should approve Sweden’s stalled bid for membership “as soon as possible.”
“Sweden has delivered on what they promised, and now the time has come for Turkiye to finalize the accession process,” Stoltenberg said.
Turkiye and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not yet ratified Sweden joining the alliance more than 18 months after it applied for membership.
The Turkish parliament started to debate Sweden’s bid to join this month after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched the process following a deal at a NATO summit in July.
NATO’s other 29 allies had hoped to be able to formally welcome Sweden into the alliance at a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels this week.
However, the process is still at the committee level in the Turkish parliament.
“I would have liked to see more speed in the ratification process; that’s no secret,” Stoltenberg said.
“I would like them to finalize that, and that’s exactly what I have communicated many times.”
Sweden has seen several incidents spark tensions with countries around the Middle East.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson on Monday denounced the leader of the far-right party propping up his government after he called for some mosques to be torn down.
Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson called for some mosques to be seized and leveled during a speech to his annual party conference on Saturday.
Kristersson, whose coalition government does not include SD but relies on its support, condemned the statements as “disrespectful.”
“I think it is a disrespectful way of expressing oneself, a polarizing way of expressing oneself,” Kristersson told broadcaster SVT.
