The speaker of Turkey’s parliament will refer a bill supporting Sweden’s NATO membership bid to the foreign affairs commission in parliament on Wednesday, according to a source from the assembly. President Tayyip Erdogan had presented the ratification bill for Sweden’s NATO membership bid to parliament on Monday, a move that was welcomed by Stockholm as it paves the way for the country to join the Western defense alliance.
The bill now needs approval from the foreign affairs commission before it can be formally ratified by the general assembly, signed into law by Erdogan, and published in the Official Gazette, subsequently completing the process.
Numan Kurtulmus, the parliament speaker, stated that he will send the bill to the foreign affairs commission after returning from a trip to Prague, as reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency on Tuesday. “I hope it (the bill) will come to the parliament’s general assembly as soon as possible and the lawmakers will make their decision,” said Kurtulmus.
The commission does not have a specified timeframe to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership. The decision of when to discuss the bill is left to the commission chair.
Sweden and Finland both applied for NATO membership last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Finland’s membership was finalized in April, marking a significant expansion of the alliance, Sweden’s bid had been delayed by Turkey and Hungary.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto affirmed that the ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid will be determined by the Hungarian parliament as a “sovereign decision.” He made this statement after a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan.
(Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever; Editing by Ece Toksabay and Gareth Jones)
