• Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but said the country will not meet all the conditions Ankara has set for its support.

• Sweden and Finland broke with decades of military non-alignment and applied to join the US-led defence alliance in response to Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine last year. 

• Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

• They applied in May to join NATO. But Turkey has refused to approve their bid until the two countries take steps, including joining Turkey’s fight against banned Kurdish militants. Most of Turkey’s demands have involved Sweden because of its more robust ties with the Kurdish diaspora.

What is NATO?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty. NATO is a security alliance of 30 countries from North America and Europe. 

• In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

• The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017) and North Macedonia (2020).

• NATO’s fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies’ freedom and security by political and military means.

• NATO enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

• NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty — Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

Why Sweden and Finland decided to join NATO?

• Once a regional military power, Sweden has avoided military alliances since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Like Finland it remained neutral throughout the Cold War, but formed closer relations with NATO after the 1991 Soviet collapse. They no longer see themselves as neutral after joining the European Union in 1995, but have remained non-aligned militarily until now.

• After being firmly against NATO membership for decades, public opinion in both countries shifted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with record levels of support for joining the alliance.

• The Swedish and Finnish governments swiftly initiated discussions across political parties about NATO membership and reached out to the US, Britain, Germany and other NATO countries for their support.

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