Turkey Agrees to Admit Sweden Into NATO

Turkey agreed to ask its parliament to advance Sweden’s bid for membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Monday. Sweden and Finland applied to join nato in May of last year, motivated by fear of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

Turkey’s demands: For a country to be admitted, all members in the alliance have to give their consent. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has so far refused to do so.

In June 2022, Sweden, Finland and Turkey signed the Trilateral Memorandum, in which Turkey would let Sweden and Finland join nato if they met certain conditions. These include promising not to support Kurdish organizations and individuals, dropping arms embargoes on Turkey that were imposed after Erdoğan sent troops to Syria in 2019, and extraditing terror suspects.

Following the agreement, Erdoğan said he would “closely monitor whether the promises made to our country are fulfilled in the coming period.”

Turkey has accused Sweden of not cracking down on what it considers “terrorist groups,” mainly the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (pkk) and its offshoots. These Kurdish groups have proved to be some of the most effective ground forces against the Islamic State. American forces in Syria have previously supported the Kurds to help them fight the Islamic State. Erdoğan views them as terrorists because they oppose his authoritarian regime.

Erdoğan’s decision to admit Sweden into nato comes after it took “steps in the right direction by making changes in the anti-terrorism legislation,” reported the Turkish directorate of communications.

Pushing for EU accession: Erdoğan has also listed Sweden’s accession into nato as grounds for Turkey to be admitted into the European Union. Before leaving for the nato summit in Vilnius, which begins today, he said, “First, come and open the way for Turkey at the European Union and then we will open the way for Sweden, just as we did for Finland.”

What’s next for Turkey? Though political analysts can’t always accurately predict the shifting alliances in this world, the Bible does. Psalm 83 prophesies of a group of nations in Europe and the Middle East, led by Germany, which aims to destroy the modern-day nations of Israel. Turkey will be a crucial player in this alliance.

To understand why Turkey plays such a massive role in the world, read our article “Pivotal Power.”