Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom speaks to the media as he attends a meeting of NATO foreign ministers at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium on November 28. (Photo: Reuters)
"I had a bilateral conversation with my colleague, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. He told me that he expects the ratification to take place within the next few weeks," Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said at a NATO meeting in Brussels.
"We look forward to completing this and no new conditions have been placed on this exchange. The Turkish government has not made any new demands," Billstrom said.
So far, Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO members that have not ratified Sweden's proposal, more than 18 months after Stockholm applied to join the military alliance.
Türkiye's parliament this month began debating Sweden's membership application after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan initiated the process under an agreement reached at a NATO summit in July.
Apart from Türkiye and Hungary, 29 other NATO members had hoped to formally welcome Sweden into the alliance at a meeting of foreign ministers earlier this week in Brussels.
But the process is stuck at the committee level in the Turkish parliament.
Sweden and neighbouring Finland abandoned their non-aligned policy and applied to join NATO after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine in 2022.
Finland became NATO's 31st member in April.
Other NATO members piled pressure on Türkiye at a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, with France saying the alliance's credibility was "at stake".
According to Foreign Minister Billstrom, Hungary also reiterated its commitment and affirmed that it would not be the last country to ratify Stockholm's NATO membership.
“That means it’s more in Ankara’s hands than Budapest’s,” Billstrom said. “We expect the signal from Budapest to come at the same time as the signal from Ankara.”
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