Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday agreed to clear the way for Sweden to become NATO's 32nd member, ending a long deadlock on the eve of a summit intended to showcase the unity of the military alliance amid Russia's war against Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made the late-night announcement after hosting a meeting with Erdogan and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
The chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Erdogan has agreed to send Sweden's NATO accession protocol to his country's parliament as quickly as possible and work closely with the legislature to "ensure ratification."
Stoltenberg hailed the Turkish president's last-minute decision, telling reporters that it is "a historic step that benefits the security of all NATO allies at this critical time."
Sweden's bid to join NATO after Finland had been up in the air since last year, mainly because of Turkey's refusal to ratify Stockholm's membership in the alliance. Applications for NATO have to be endorsed by all its members.
Turkey had said Sweden was too soft on Kurdish groups that Ankara regards as threats to its national security and urged Stockholm to do more to crack down on them.
Earlier Monday, the outlook for NATO's inclusion of Sweden became even murkier as Erdogan stunned European leaders by unexpectedly saying he would not approve Sweden's bid unless they paved the way for Turkey to join the European Union, in comments to the press before leaving for the two-day summit.
The Swedish and Turkish leaders agreed that cooperation to fight terrorism is a long-term effort that will continue even after the Nordic country's accession to NATO, according to Stoltenberg.
The NATO chief also said Sweden promised to "actively support" efforts to reinvigorate the process of Turkey becoming part of the EU.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO in May 2022, departing from the military nonalignment policies they upheld through the decades of the Cold War, to seek collective security against Russia, which began invading Ukraine in February that year.
Finland's NATO accession was green-lighted in April.
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